


The World According to Tony Stark (Or: How I Did No Work and Became an ESU Legend)

by Stripes_040527



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bucky has a prosthetic arm, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, General Chaos, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Will add more tags as I go, copious use of group chat, oh my god they were roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-18 17:27:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21530593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stripes_040527/pseuds/Stripes_040527
Summary: “What are you even doing here?” Stephen snapped.“I’m here because of a long, winding friendship and a limited edition Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mug. Would you like to hear the story?”Herein lies the completely accurate and factually true account of how Tony Stark, resident genius and champion bot fighter, helped found the Avengers, aced his exams, befriended the unfriendable, and became the hero and love of Empire State University, as told to Stephen Strange, the unfairly cute pre-med sitting on the balcony alone during one of the Captain's infamous parties.[Tony finds Stephen sitting alone at a party, looking miserable][Tony does the only thing he knows how to do][He talks]
Relationships: Brunnhilde | Valkyrie/Carol Danvers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Jane Foster/Thor, Scott Lang/Sam Wilson, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange, Wanda Maximoff/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Tony goes away to college, after a lot of fuss from his parents  
> He make new friends  
> Becomes a part of a real family  
> Starts some prank wars  
> Fights a lot
> 
> Then he summarises it all for Stephen one Friday night

The party had been going for approximately 3 hours, 14 minutes and maybe 36 seconds, by Tony’s reckoning.  
They were a strange group, he’d admit, but he loved them all anyway.  
They were split into several groups, people piled into the kitchen, on couches, even in the bedroom.

Tony was stood, leaning against the kitchen counter, as he laughed with Rhodey about something or another.

“Where’d Strange go?” Carol asked him, her arm slung around Thor’s neck.  
She was standing on the coffee table, and still shorter than him.  
“Who knows?” Sam said with a shrug. “I’m surprised he even came.”  
There was a cheer as Bucky walked in the door, holding a carton of beer with a six pack of cider stacked on it, Scott following with another carton.  
Sam turned to wolf whistle at them, then turned back to the group.  
“I’m pretty sure he came to yell at us for being loud,” Steve told him.  
“Oh. Probably,” Carol said, grinning wildly and taking a long drink from her cup. “Dude does that a lot. We always invite him in, but he never stays. It’s a Friday night, for Christ’s sake, he needs to chill out."   
“I think it’s my fault he stayed,” Tony admitted. “I grabbed him and made him give his opinion on an argument Rhodey and I were having.”  
“And he… answered?”  
“He ruled in my favour actually.”  
“Oh, dope,” Carol said, nodding appreciatively. “Props to you, man.”  
“Jesus, what is with you and the 90s?” Sam asked, running his hand down his face. “It came, it saw, it conquered. Then it was defeated by the year 2000, which was succeeded by 2010. Get with it.”  
“Get wiggy with it?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.  
Sam groaned and Thor laughed heartily.  
“Yo, Captains!” someone called, and both Steve and Carol were gone in an instant, disappearing into the party.  
“Where _did_ Strange go?” Thor asked. “He has not left, Valkyrie would have stopped him immediately.”  
“I’ll go find him,” Tony volunteered, shrugging. “I have a feeling I know.”

Tony found Stephen Strange exactly where he expected, sitting on the balcony, leaning against the railing, nursing the beer he’d been handed when he’d walked in a little over an hour ago.  
“Still here?” Tony asked. “I’m impressed, I thought you would’ve snuck out already.”  
“Brunnhilde would have shot me if I tried. She’s been watching the door like a hawk.”  
“Brunnhilde?”  
“Valkyrie.”  
“Oh, what the fuck?”  
“Yeah, surprisingly, she has an actual name,” Stephen bit out, glaring at his beer.  
“That’s not allowed. She’s the Valkyrie. That’s her title, that’s her name, and that’s all she’ll ever be known as.”  
“Valkyrie Danvers does have a nice ring to it.”  
“ _Mrs Captain_ Valkyrie Danvers,” Tony said with a grin, nudging Stephen with his elbow lightly.  
Stephen nudged him back, hard, but didn’t move away.  
“So, what’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”  
“I don’t know.”  
His tone was steeped in annoyance, but Tony pretended not to notice.  
“Fair enough. I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time either, I just do it.”  
“I’m aware. I’ve heard enough stories about your exploits in the labs to assume you have no idea what you’re doing,” Stephen said dryly, rolling his eyes.  
“Wow, am I that famous?”  
“You’re Tony fucking Stark, of course you’re famous.”  
“Oh Stephen, and there you were pretending you didn’t know me at all,” Tony said, hand over his heart. “When you’re really keeping tabs on me.”  
“What are you even doing here?” Stephen snapped.  
“That is the question, isn’t it. Do you mean existentially, geographically, or socially?”  
Stephen paused, searching his face for a hint of mocking, but found none.  
“Existentially, I assume for the same reason as everyone else,” Tony started. “Which I like to believe is the betterment of all mankind. If you mean existentially as in why am _I specifically_ here, then that’s because my parents had been married for a few years and felt it was ‘the right thing to do’. Although I sometimes wish they hadn’t.”  
Stephen opened his mouth to say something, but Tony ploughed on.  
“Geographically, because of those same parents. Pops is the reason I left, ma is the reason I stayed close. This place was the compromise.”  
“I meant why are you here at this party, sitting on this balcony.”  
“Oh, then option number three! Socially I’m here because of a long, winding friendship and a limited edition Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mug. Would you like to hear the story?”  
Stephen made an expression of distaste, and shook his head.  
“Too bad, I’m telling you anyway.”  
Tony turned to look at him properly.  
“Do you know anyone here?” he asked, watching him carefully.  
“Not really, just the hosts and Bruce.”  
“Oooooh, this way I get to tell you about everyone as well as tell my long and interesting tale!” Tony exclaimed, brightening immediately.  
“You really don’t have to do this,” Stephen told him, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m fine out here on my own.”  
“No, it’s fine, I love to talk. Especially about myself. And anyway, if you try and leave, Valkyrie will know and you’ll be in trouble. But if you sit out here on your own, you’ll be a loser. I can’t have either of those on my conscience.”  
“You’re worried I’ll be a loser?”  
“It is my moral obligation as an incredibly cool person to take you under my wing.”  
“Gee, thanks.”  
“You’re very welcome,” Tony said seriously.  
“Just tell your damn story.”  
“For that we need to start at the beginning. The beginning beginning.”  
“Oh no,” Stephen said under his breath.  
“On a beautiful spring day in the year of our lord 1999, a boy was born, with bright eyes and a brighter future.”  
Stephen stood abruptly.  
“I have to go.”  
“Okay, no, I’m kidding,” Tony said, grabbing at his hand and tugging him back down to sitting. “It all started when I applied for college.”


	2. Freshman Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Definitely not what I expected when I applied, but having three footballers, a frat lit major, and Tony Stark as my friends is turning out to be good fun,” Bruce admitted.
> 
> -*-
> 
> “Tony,” Stephen said with a sigh.  
> “What?”  
> Tony’s eyes were wide as he feigned innocence.  
> “You’re embellishing.”  
> “I would never,” Tony said, crossing his hand over his heart. “A bastion of truth and sincerity, right here.”  
> Stephen snorted into his beer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so, hold onto your hats people  
> This is the first year, as summarised for Stephen by Tony  
> It gets… pretty goddamn ridiculous
> 
> The story is split between the actual plot, and then Stephen and Tony talking, hopefully it doesn’t get too confusing!

Tony had applied for college aggressively, filling out forms for every single one he could think of, muttering under his breath about the “family business”.  
He lost count of the number of admission essays he wrote across the months of applying.

He’d always planned on going to college, getting a degree and making his mark on the world.  
That plan was somewhat waylaid when his father told him not to bother.  
The screaming match was one to remember, beyond their usual arguments.  
It was not a surprise when the police were called, or when Tony packed a bag and disappeared to Rhodey’s house for a few days.

Howard Stark was a brilliant man who had built a brand and taken the world by storm, and he’d expected Tony to fall right into line behind him as prodigy, student, and eventual successor.  
Tony had instead made a name for himself with his own tech ideas and some bad choices caught on camera.  
An intense period of supervision and structure was Howard’s answer after one too many drunken scandals, which went about as well as anyone would expect.  
Even though Tony had completed high school before he was 14 and was begged after by MIT, going to college was not something in The Plan.  
The Plan being Howard’s ideal for how Tony would continue the family name and business, something he was not open to negotiations on.  
It took years, almost a decade, but Tony won eventually.  
Tony always won, eventually.

He had been ready to run to Paris or London or anywhere, _anywhere_ , that wasn’t near his father, but his mother put her foot down and, through a teary conversation, convinced him to stay close.  
Empire State University was the compromise.

Tony had hated the idea.  
It wasn’t worth the tuition, in his opinion, but Rhodey was accepted there too, so with a car full of stuff and faces covered in lipstick kisses, they went to college.  
(Tony thought it was all a bit overkill, given that the university was only a 45 minutes drive away, but Mama Rhodes and Maria Stark were both devastated that their boys were all grown up).

Rhodey and Tony moved into a dorm room together and never spoke about the sheer amount of money Howard must have paid to make that happen, but Maria had told them to look out for each other and the easiest way to do that was to live together.

James Rupert “Rhodey” Rhodes had been his best friend as long as he could remember.  
His whole life, probably.  
No matter what happened, Rhodey was there to pick up the pieces.

There were a few constants in Tony’s life: his father’s absolute indifference unless his reputation was at stake, his mother’s inability to say no to him, Jarvis’s hot chocolate cheering him up when he was sad, and Rhodey’s ability to pinpoint the issue and fix it with him.

When they’d finished moving all their boxes in, they’d sat on the floor and put on the game, deciding that unpacking could wait.

-*-

“Wait,” Stephen said, eyebrows furrowing. “How did you end up with Rhodes as your housemate? If your dad was so against it, why would he pay to guarantee you lived together?”  
“Like I said, my mother wanted us to stay together.”  
“She had that much pull? I thought your father was a hard ass.”  
Stephen paused, looking faintly embarrassed.  
“Sorry,” he said quietly.  
“Nah, it’s fine,” Tony said, waving him off. “He is a hard ass. But after the kidnapping, he had security on me at all times. I wouldn’t go for security here, and he figured I was better with Rhodey than on my own.”  
“I’m sorry, kidnapping?”  
“You didn’t hear? It was allllll over the news. My first piece of fame that wasn’t something dumb, self-inflicted, _or_ alcohol fuelled.”  
“What happened?”  
“Daddy dearest has some enemies. I was an easy target.”  
“When?”  
“Hmm… I was maybe 16? There were a few attempts, but that was the one that stuck.”  
“Jesus,” Stephen breathed, taking a sip of his no doubt warm beer.  
“That’s not relevant to the story. Just know I am way tougher and cooler than I seem, especially because I successfully built my first piece of wearable tech while locked in a basement.”  
Tony waved his arm, showing off his watch.  
“But I digress, Rhodey and I shared a pizza and then went to bed on our first night here.”

-*-

Their first full day at ESU had involved checking out the various clubs (lame), frats (lamer) and Rhodey disappearing to meet his team while Tony wandered around the campus by himself (the lamest).  
Tony resigned himself to a life without a team or friend group built on shared interests, and headed back to his room.

Rhodey joined him for dinner, depositing a McDonalds bag in Tony’s awaiting hands and apologising.  
“We jumped straight into training,” he explained with a rueful smile. “No time to waste, according to Cap.”  
“Who’s Cap?” Tony asked, mouth full of burger.  
“He’s the one in charge. Which is weird because he’s only our age, but apparently he’s a prodigy.”  
“So you call him Cap?”  
“Everyone does, that or Captain. I dunno, just seems the done thing.”  
“What’s he like?”  
“Big, blonde, very fratty. Nice guy though.”  
“And the team?”  
Tony tried to listen as Rhodey described his new team, but football was not his forte and he’d never bothered to learn the various positions or plays.  
He dipped his fries into his ice cream as Rhodey talked about the Howling Commandos, the ESU team that had dominated the last four years.

“Anyway,” Rhodey said, elbowing Tony lightly. “Cap invited us to dinner in a few weeks. Apparently he and his housemate do a cook up every month and sometimes even have beer, if they get lucky.”  
“We only just got here; how do they already have a _thing_?” Tony asked incredulously.  
“Cap’s been doing it for years, since he was a freshy in high school. I get the feeling he doesn’t have much family.”  
“That’s… That’s something.”  
“His housemate is also on the team, and he’s cool with it if it means Cap will cook for him too. They seem like really good guys.”  
“That’s cool.”  
“What about you, Tones? Make any friends?”  
“Yeah, of course,” Tony said petulantly, gesturing to his desk. “I’m calling him Dum-E.”  
“Is that a claw with wheels?”  
“Basically, yeah.”  
Tony shrugged and Rhodey sighed, then they turned back to the television.

-*-

“You built a robot named dummy?” Stephen asked, tilting his head.  
“Dum-E,” Tony said, spelling the name out.  
“Why?”  
“Well, I had a similar one when I was a kid, one of the first AI based things I ever built. Howard still has it in his lab somewhere, but I wanted my own. And a claw on wheels is more helpful than you’d think.”  
Stephen nodded, seemingly dumbstruck.  
“Are you feeling better?” Tony asked, face pulling into an apologetic smile when Stephen flinched.  
“What do you mean?”  
“You looked… lonely? Or at least, uncomfortable. Why else do you think I came out here? Aside from the Captains wondering about where you went.”  
“I didn’t think Carol would care,” he said stiffly.  
“Of course she did, they both did. The Captains are caring leaders who care and lead.”  
“Well, I’m fine. You can go.”  
“God no, I’m not even past the prologue of this story.”  
“Well hurry up and finish.”  
Tony grinned, and Stephen offered him a small smile in return.  
“Okay, so Rhodey has his team, and I’m a loner, right? This is where Bruce comes in.”

-*-

Bruce and Tony shared a few classes, although Bruce was much more physics based than Tony and his mechanical engineering.

It took three seconds for Tony to decide he wanted Bruce to be his friend.  
It took two weeks and four days for him to convince Bruce that it was a good idea.

“I don’t know, Tony, I’ve heard you have a propensity for explosions and harebrained schemes,” Bruce told him when he asked him to be his study buddy.  
“That is true. If I promise to keep them to a minimum, will you consider it?”  
Bruce grinned at him, a borderline heart-stopping smile, and Tony had to remind himself to breathe.  
“Okay, I guess.”

Tony definitely had a crush, but he couldn’t tell if it was the man, the smile, or the goddamn brilliance of his mind.

A few days later Rhodey brought up dinner with Cap and Bucky, the housemate Rhodey had mentioned.  
Tony agreed to go, on the proviso he could bring a friend and also could leave if they started talking about football.  
“It’s just not my game,” Tony said, as they knocked on the apartment door.

A man opened the door, 6 foot something with blonde hair, a smile a mile wide and shoulders that filled the doorframe.  
“Maybe it’s my game,” Tony allowed, and Rhodey laughed.  
The blonde looked confused, but ushered them in the door.  
“I’m Steve,” he said to Tony, holding his hand out to shake. “You can call me Cap if you want, but Steve is fine too.”  
“Oi, Rogers,” came a call from a bedroom. “You little punk, where is my jacket?”  
“You going somewhere, Buck?” Steve shouted back. “Should I just give away your portion?”  
“No fucking way, it just looks like you’ve cleaned my room and I really want to know where the hell you’ve put my stuff.”  
“Try the cupboard, hanging with the rest of them,” Steve called dryly, before turning back to Tony. “Sorry, that’s Bucky. He’s in a mood.”  
“Am not,” the man in question snapped, walking out of his room and nodding sharply at Tony.  
He was tall as well, dark hair hitting his shoulders as he frowned at Steve.  
“Stop touching my shit, Rogers.”  
“Stop leaving it all over the lounge room, Barnes.”  
Bucky stuck his tongue out at him.

“This is Tony,” Rhodey told Bucky. “He’s my housemate and best friend.”  
“Sup, Tony,” Bucky said, shrugging when Steve glared at him. “Sorry, Steve’s right, I am in a mood.”  
“What happened?” Rhodey asked.  
“Dropped my phone and smashed the screen. Also spilled coffee all over myself. And was late to class. It’s been a day.”  
“Oh, that’s fair,” Tony said. “I’d have murdered a man if I spilled my coffee. Any man.”  
Bucky’s face split into a grin, and Tony smirked.  
“Thank you! God, no one gets it. Steve still uses a brick Nokia, and he’s never spilled a drink in his life, or been late.”  
“A Nokia?” Tony spluttered. “Why in the world?”  
Steve shrugged, unashamed.  
“It hasn’t died yet.”  
Tony looked set to give him a lecture, and Rhodey sighed, relieved, when there was a knock at the door.  
Steve answered it to a worried looking Bruce.  
“Oh god, I hope I’m at the right place,” he said, looking up at the blonde in panic. “Tony said there was dinner?”  
“You’re in the right place,” Steve said kindly. “I’m Steve, that’s Bucky, and you know the other two.”  
“Only by reputation,” Bruce said smoothly, calming in an instant. “Hey Tony.”  
“Yo, Brucey boy, meet Rhodey.”  
Rhodey and Bruce shook hands, and Bucky nodded in greeting.  
Steve stepped out into the hall, shouting “Thor, come on!”  
A moment later, another blonde appeared at the door, wearing a toga made out of a sheet and holding a six pack under each arm.  
“You do not know the lengths I have gone to this day,” he told them, voice booming as he entered.  
“Team, meet Thor. Thor, meet everyone.”  
Thor put the beers on the table, then hugged Bucky.  
Bucky winced as he was crushed, patting Thor on the back weakly.  
Thor then turned to other three, Rhodey accepting his hug as Tony and Bruce stepped out of reach.  
“Hello brothers, I am Thor.”  
“Footballer?” Bruce asked, taking in Thor’s rather impressive build and outfit.  
“Nope,” Bucky said with a grin. “He’s a literature major.”  
“Don’t get him started on Beowulf,” Steve added, and Thor rubbed the back of his neck, blushing.  
“I have a lot of thoughts about medieval epics and mythology,” he told them.  
“Comes with the name, I assume,” Bruce said dryly, smiling politely.  
“Did we warn you guys that Thor is a lot? Because he is a _lot_ ,” Bucky said with a shrug.  
“Jane seems to like him well enough,” Steve admitted. “Maybe he’ll grow on us.”  
“Like a tumour?”  
“Like a tumour.”  
“It’s not a tumour,” Tony quoted, in a thick Austrian accent.  
Bucky barked out a laugh, grabbing a beer and sitting at the table.

Steve plated up dinner, lasagne and garlic bread, all home made and all inhumanly good.

-*-

“Jane?” Stephen asked. “Who’s that?”  
“Thor’s girlfriend,” Tony explained, gesturing to the small brunette standing inside with Thor. “She’s a physics major, like Brucey boy. They met when she hit Thor with her car.”  
“And he still dated her?”  
“Reckons she’s got a ‘warrior’s spirit’ or something. Also, he scared her, so it evens out.”  
“Wait, she hit him on purpose?”  
“Nah, he stepped out behind her van while wasted on the first night here. Didn’t even see her. She went to help him and he jumped up, yelling and being a drunken nuisance. Her roommate tased him.”  
“What the fuck?” Stephen asked, voice barely above a whisper.  
“Darcy is a card. She and Jane had just met, decided to go get dinner and they fucking hit Thor with their fucking van! Then he’s being a loud idiot so Darcy tases him and he goes down like lead balloon. They managed to get him in the van and drop him to a hospital. Jane went back to visit him the next morning, mostly to check he wasn’t pressing charges, I think. Turns out he’s already checked out, so she goes to leave and you’ll never fucking believe it, manages to hit him again.”  
“Seriously? This is a joke, right? A really elaborate joke.”  
“No word of a lie. He recovers much quicker from the second hit though, and invites her to get breakfast with him. He needed a cure for his hangover and she was feeling guilty as hell, so she buys him a huge greasy meal. They’ve been inseparable ever since.”  
“That’s one way to get laid.”  
“There are easier ways.”  
“So I’ve heard.”  
Tony snorted, and Stephen smiled slightly.  
“So what happened after dinner?”  
“Oh, okay, so, after we ate, we played Mario Kart.”

-*-

Mario Kart was the worst idea they could have had, at least in Steve’s opinion.  
He had thrown the controller in disgust when Tony beat him, standing.  
“I’m going to bed,” he told them, as Bucky laughed at him.  
“Sore loser!” Tony jeered, and Steve waved them off, heading to his room.  
“I’m up next, Bucky said, snatching up the controller before anyone else could.  
He shed his over shirt and gloves, revealing a prosthetic left arm, metal glinting in the light.  
Tony raised his eyebrows, leaning forward slightly, but Bucky shrugged.  
“It’s-” he started, but Thor cut him off.  
“Not important,” he told him.  
“Yeah, none of our business,” Bruce agreed.

Bucky chose his character, and they started playing.  
They played three rounds, Tony winning the first, then Bucky the second.  
The third was tight, the two of them fighting for first place on Rainbow Road.

Tony cried out as Bucky’s cart hit his, but managed to avoid falling off the edge of the track.  
“Better luck next time,” he screeched, fist pumping as he cleared the finish line. “Eat shit, Barnes!”  
Bucky scowled, fingers tightening on the controller.  
There was a crack, and then the controller in Bucky’s hands crumbled, his metallic hand crushing it.  
“Shit,” he said quietly, dropping it.  
“Oh, dude, are you okay?” Tony asked.  
“It’s just not working right,” Bucky admitted, flexing his prosthetic hand. “Keeps sticking.”  
The gears in his arm whirred as it moved.  
“I can have a look at it, if you want,” Tony offered. “Stark tech, right?”  
“Yeah, prototype.”  
“How’d you get a hold of it?”  
“Program. Pay less, get a beta, let them know how it goes when it fucks up.”  
Tony snorted, reaching slowly.  
“I helped build the receivers, and I’m pretty handy with a soldering iron.”  
Bucky tensed, then relented, holding his hand out for Tony to look at.  
“I can’t do much here, but if you stop by the labs tomorrow, I can have a look at it properly,” Tony told him, inspecting the arm closer. “Can even give you a sick paint job if you want.”  
Bucky snorted.  
“Fine. Let me know time and place, and I’ll be there.”

-*- 

“So you’re responsible for the star?”  
“No, that was actually Bucky himself, I just pointed out he could do it.”  
“Why a star?”  
“Steve,” Tony said, as if it explained everything.  
It probably did.

-*-

Bruce was already in the lab when Tony arrived, surrounded by stacks of paper as he muttered to himself.  
He didn’t even notice Tony walk in, too caught up in his equations.  
He jumped when Tony placed a takeaway coffee cup in front of him, looking up at him in confusion.  
“I don’t drink coffee,” he said slowly, eyebrows furrowed.  
“I know, it’s tea,” Tony told him.  
Bruce’s face split into a grin and he took the cup gratefully.  
“Thank you, Tony. I really appreciate it.”  
“I know, I’m a gem.”  
Bruce laughed.

Tony put his bag on the table, pulling out his laptop and getting it started.  
He took his sunglasses off, throwing them onto the desk and drinking from his own takeaway cup.  
“Oh caffeine, you complete me,” he crooned.  
“Should I leave you two alone?”  
Bucky’s voice carried from the doorway, and Tony started.  
“Don’t scare me like that,” he hissed, turning to glare at Bucky.  
“You said 8. It’s 8.”  
“God, I would never expect you to be on time.”  
“I live to exceed expectations,” Bucky said loftily, throwing himself into a chair and dropping his bag on the ground.  
“Well you can wait until I’m ready,” Tony snapped, but there was no heat in it. “I’ve got some programs to run.”  
“I live to serve your every whim,” Bucky said dryly, then noticed Bruce. “Hey there, Banner.”  
Bruce lifted his hand in a half-wave, not looking up from his notes.

After a few minutes, Tony was ready, making Bucky move to sit next to him.  
Bucky held out his arm and Tony poked and prodded at it, looking for the release.  
“Oh, come to papa,” Tony said when the panel opened, revealing a tangle of wires and circuitry. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”  
“You keep talking to my arm like that and I’ll force you to take it out to dinner,” Bucky said dryly.  
Tony grinned up at him, eyes slightly wild.  
“It’s a very pretty arm, Bucky. Anyone would be a fool not to treat it to the night out it deserves. I would woo this arm so hard if you let me. A movie, dinner, dessert, the works. I wouldn’t even expect it to put out, I would really work to seduce it.”  
“Aw, Tony, ya makin’ me blush,” Bucky drawled.

-*-

“The arm is that interesting?” Stephen asked, eyebrows furrowed.  
“What? I love a complex piece of machinery with unlabelled wires,” Tony said with a shrug. “It was beeeeeeautiful, Stephen. Stunning bit of work.”  
“I’ve just never heard someone say they would seduce a prosthetic before.”  
“Well, that was mostly for Bucky’s benefit. He was playing it cool, but he obviously does not like that thing being touched. So I distracted him.”  
“Oh. _Oh_ ,” Stephen said as it dawned on him. “That’s surprisingly good bedside manner, Stark.”  
“Better than yours, I’d imagine.”  
Stephen huffed, and Tony smirked at him.  
“Anyway, I’m wrist deep in some of the most beautiful tech I’ve seen in a while, chatting to a cute boy while an even cuter boy watches on, impressed.”  
“I feel like that’s embellished.”  
“No word of a lie, Strange. Those boys were very attractive.”  
“I meant Bruce being impressed,” Stephen said dryly.  
“He was. Very,” Tony told him, but he felt a blush creeping up his neck. “This is beside the point!”

-*-

Bucky rested his forearm on the table, palm up, while Tony poked around the wrist joint.  
“So, how do you find the arm?” Tony asked, frowning at the wires. “This set up is dumb, I need to completely redo these.”  
“I like it well enough. Better than no arm.”  
“That’s fair.”  
“Besides, the metal makes me feel like some kinda super spy or assassin.”  
Tony laughed.  
“It sure does make you seem scarier.”  
“That’s the beauty of it.”  
“Oh, I see the problem,” Tony said suddenly, leaning to tap a few keys on his laptop. “Are you okay for me to connect you to the computer?”  
“I… I guess,” Bucky said, frowning slightly.  
“It’s just going to run diagnostics. I can see any hardware problems, but software problems I need the computer for. Get Jarvis poking around there so he can tell me what’s up.”  
“Jarvis?”  
“He’s my AI. Hand built. My true soulmate. He runs through all my tech, keeps me linked and updated on whatever is going on.”  
“That sounds…”  
“Cool? Awesome? Astounding? Fantastic?”  
“Creepy.”  
“I resent the implication,” came a decidedly British voice from Tony’s computer.  
Tony beamed at Bucky, who flinched almost imperceptibly.  
“Shit, sorry,” Tony said quickly, face dropping. “I have him on when I’m in the lab to read my results out to me so I can do more of the fun stuff.”  
“No, it’s fine,” Bucky mumbled.  
“Jarvis, microphone and speakers off,” Tony commanded.  
The laptop made a chirping noise.  
“Sorry, didn’t even think. He’s a learning bot, even picks up on social cues and slang. One of my first proper AIs I’ve ever built. Dum-E isn’t so smart, but he tries.”  
Bucky relaxed, letting Tony prattle on about his bots and plans for the future, more learning AIs and security upgrades.

Eventually, Tony gave him the all clear.  
“Looks good to go,” he said, snapping the access panel shut. “You’re free, Bucky.”  
“Thanks,” Bucky said softly. “Appreciated.”  
“I guarantee this was more fun for me than for you,” Tony told him, grinning widely. “Any time you want me to have another look, you know where to find me.”  
Bucky nodded at him, then stood, collecting his bag.  
“Oh, and if you want, seeing as it’s my name on the hardware, I can take over the care in a more official capacity.”  
“Yeah?”  
“Yep. I can call them now, if you want.”  
“That would be… really good, actually. Save me a trip into Stark Industries every time something goes haywire.”  
“Won’t even charge you for it.”  
Bucky laughed, mock saluting Tony and turning to go.  
“See ya, Bruce,” he called behind him, but Bruce barely looked up.

Tony continued to tap on his keyboard, humming to himself as he worked.  
“Coffee run?” Bruce asked after a few hours, standing and stretching.  
“Oh, god yes, I ran dry ages ago,” Tony said, holding up his empty while he continued to type one-handed.

Bruce returned shortly, handing Tony a cup.  
“Triple shot for ye of questionable sleep habits,” Bruce told him, sitting at Bucky’s vacated chair. “What are you working on? Still the arm?”  
“Nah, shelved that until the next time Bucky needs a _hand_.”  
Tony snickered and Bruce rolled his eyes.  
“So what’s all this?” Bruce asked, gesturing to the lines of code. “Assignment?”  
“Purely for funsies. I’ve taken some of Jarvis’s core code and uploaded it, playing with the settings. I’m building… something resembling a sentry bot, I guess.”  
Bruce nodded, leaning in to look at the screen closer.  
“A lot of potential,” he said, nodding thoughtfully as he read through Tony’s notes.  
Tony’s brain short circuited as Bruce moved further forward, face almost directly in front of Tony’s.  
He grimaced as he realised he was staring, taking in the sight of Bruce’s nose and cheekbones.  
He sat back quickly, shaking his head.  
“Wanna help out?” he asked carefully.  
“I dunno. I’m not really into the computer side.”  
“You’re a good person to bounce ideas of off.”  
Bruce grinned at him, and he tried not to blush.  
“Sure, Tony. I’d love to.”  
“Great. That’s great,” Tony breathed, biting his lip when Bruce’s grin widened.

His phone chimed, and he broke eye contact to look at the message.

“So, hungry for lunch?” Tony asked with a smirk.  
“I guess.”  
Bruce shrugged and Tony typed out a message on his phone.  
“Steve has invited us to join him, Bucky, and Thor. They’re going for pizza. Rhodey is a tentative yes, too.”  
“Then what are we waiting for?” Bruce asked, standing. “Let’s go.”  
“I’m really enjoying this group thing we’re doing.”  
“Definitely not what I expected when I applied, but having three footballers, a frat lit major, and Tony Stark as my friends is turning out to be good fun.”  
“It’s all me,” Tony said off-handedly, packing his bag. “I’m the fun.”  
Bruce laughed.  
“Sure Tony, it’s all you.”

-*-

“And thus, the team was born,” Tony announced grandly.  
“What team?”  
“Well, it wasn’t so much a team as just a group of us catching up and hanging out. Not yet, at least.”  
Stephen furrowed his eyebrows at him, and Tony sighed.  
“There’s more that happens before we become the super awesome super cool team everyone knows and loves,” he admitted, standing. “I’ll be back in a second.”  
He walked into the party, reappearing a minute later with a six pack.  
“One more for prosperity,” he said, holding a beer out to Stephen, who took it carefully.  
“I guess another can’t hurt.”  
“Anyway, so before we get to the team, I have to tell you about bot fighting.”

-*-

There were a few things about bot fighting that Tony was sure of.  
It was a useful way to test his new tech upgrades.  
It made him think on his feet.  
It was fun as hell.  
Betting on it was undeniably illegal. And unsurprisingly lucrative.  
Tony _loved_ it.

He’d found himself doing it completely by accident.  
He was playing with his first iteration of the robot for an assessment, a four legged creature with an arm mounted on top, the arm and claw pulled directly from the schematics for Dum-E.  
One of the juniors had stopped to check it out, asking if he was entering it in the contest.  
“Contest?” Tony asked, brow furrowed. “What contest?”  
The junior laughed, writing down an address and time on a post-it.  
“Tonight, come check it out and see what you think. Say I sent you."  
“And who are you?”  
“Cho. Can you pass on a message to Bruce too?”  
“Bruce? You know Banner?”  
“Yeah, he’s studying the same thing I am. Tell him Amadeus has a solution for the issue he was working on.”  
Then the guy turned and left, leaving Tony alone and confused.  
“Amadeus? Okay, that’s something to think about another time,” he told himself, picking up a screwdriver to fiddle with a leg joint.

That night he went to the address, a local warehouse that’d been foreclosed and sat empty for months.  
The windows were boarded, the gate was padlocked, and Tony was 40% sure he was going to wake up in the morning in a bathtub full of ice, missing one or both kidneys.

The door swung open easily and he was greeted by a tall guy who stared him down.  
“What are you doing here?” he asked, voice deep and menacing.  
“Cho sent me?” Tony said, it sounding more like a question as his voice wavered.  
“Amadeus always picks the good ones,” the guy told him, clapping his back and making him stumble. “Welcome Tony Stark, you’re going to have fun.”  
The guy pointed him forward, explaining how to get through the maze of a building, lights low and grime evident.

He ended up in a large basement area, surprisingly bright and homely.  
There was a ring set up in the middle of the room, people crowding around it.  
He recognised a few people from the robotics lab, a few from around campus, but most weren’t recognisable.  
They all also looked a few years older.

Tony shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and stepped forward.  
He pushed through the crowd until he was standing closer to the ring.

In the centre of the ring, two robots were facing each other, one shaped like a crab, complete with pincers, while the other was vaguely human shaped and holding a miniature chainsaw.  
The robots moved forward and the fight began.  
Tony watched in awe as the bots attacked each other, the chainsaw swinging in an arc and ripping through the crab-bots shell with a metallic screech.  
The crab-bot jumped back out of the way, pincers swinging as the crowd cheered.  
Tony watched the bot's owner, a short man standing on the edge of the ring, swear loudly and stamp his foot.  
He typed something onto his tablet and the crab-bot moved, grabbing the hand of the humanoid-bot and pulling, ripping the hand holding the chainsaw off.  
The crowd got louder as the crab-bot advanced, knocking the humanoid-bot over and standing over it.  
It grabbed the head in its pincers and twisted, pulling it clean off.  
The crowd roared and Tony grinned.

“Glad to see you made it,” Cho said, appearing beside him and elbowing him lightly. “Welcome to the Pit.”  
“The Pit?”  
“Home of the finest bot fighters in New York.”  
The owner of the humanoid-bot stepped forward, shaking his head as he collected the pieces.  
“I want in,” Tony said quickly, turning to Cho. “Tell me how.”  
“Easy. Bring a bot, enter it, fight.”  
“What are the rules?”  
“No bought equipment, no attacking humans, no mercy.”  
“Perfect.”  
Cho gestured to the ring, grinning.  
“You’ll wanna watch this, Vanko’s the best in the business.”

A man stepped forward, long hair a mess and his face covered in grease.  
He had a goatee and was biting on a toothpick as he laid down his robot in the ring.  
The bot stood on two feet, with a large yellow light set into the body.  
The arms were long, resembling tentacles or whips, and they were lit up with the same yellow light.

“Who is he?” Tony asked Cho, staring at the bot with glee.  
“Ivan Vanko. Went to ESU to build robots. Got kicked out a couple years back, now he comes here. Makes a killing betting on the fights. He has a sixth sense about it, always can pick a winner.”  
“Why’d he get kicked out of ESU?”  
“No idea,” Cho admitted, rubbing his chin. “He is a man of few words.”  
Tony nodded, watching as the competitor put out her robot, a dog-like bot complete with tail and snapping jaw.

The fight barely lasted two minutes, Vanko’s bot ripping the dog-bot in half with its whip-like appendages, electricity crackling down the whips and frying the dog-bot as it struggled.

Tony turned to Cho, a maniacal grin in place.  
“So, what’s this about betting?”

-*-

“Aren’t those groups illegal?” Stephen asked, eyes narrowed.  
“No, just not school sanctioned. Betting is, it’s unlawful gambling or some shit. But the fighting is fine. I always use a proxy anyway.”  
“A proxy?”  
“Someone places the bet in my place, so it’s less suspicious.”  
“Suspicious? Isn’t it only suspicious when you take a dive?”  
“Well, if we get caught, someone else’s name means I don’t get arrested.”  
“So who’s the poor bastard you’re setting up?”  
“Technically it’s Rhodey,” Tony admitted with a grin. “But his name, for all intents and purposes, is Joey Engelberger.”  
Stephen frowned.  
“Who is that?”  
“Father of modern robotics. The fact that no-one ever picked up on it makes me feel vindicated. They’re all posers.”  
“Posers?”  
“Not real robotology disciples.”  
Stephen shook his head at him, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.  
“Robotology?”  
“It’s a word!” Tony said defensively. “Look it up.”  
“Whatever, continue the story.”  
“I knew you were having fun.”  
Stephen levelled him with a look, and Tony relented.  
“Okay, so the other key player in this is a guy named Hammer.”  
“Hammer?”  
“Justin was his first name, Justin Hammer. What a super villain name. Suits the dickhead to a tee.”

-*-

Justin Hammer hated a lot of people.  
His father was first on the list, but Tony Stark came in a close second.

English by birth, citizen of Monaco by his mother’s choice, living in America thanks to a scholarship, and angry at the world by virtue of a few close-calls with law enforcement and a particularly nasty break up.  
He was, by his own reckoning, a genius.

He spent months working on a robot that would be top of the line, a bot that could move and think of its own accord.  
The application for it was limitless, and his professor said the project showed great promise.

Justin Hammer was set to take on the world of robotics.  
Change the game.  
Revolutionise the industry.  
Become a family name.  
So on and so forth.

He gave his presentation, showed off his work, and sat down satisfied.  
He’d nailed it.

Then Tony fucking Stark stood up.

Tony fucking Stark and his fucking robot.  
It was miles ahead of what was on the market, ahead of even what Hammer had achieved.  
He’d made Hammer look like an idiot.

So Hammer had done what he did best - gone looking for revenge.  
First he scoped out Stark’s work, trying to ascertain as much as he could from looking at the code and example robot Stark had submitted for the assignment.  
Then he scoped out Stark himself.  
That had led, of course, to the bot fights.

He’d kept to the sides, not speaking to anyone, watching closely.

Tony fucking Stark was an incredible bot fighter.  
The robot he’d shown in his assessment was basic compared to his fighting bot, a red and gold humanoid that was honestly beautiful.  
It was a masterpiece, Hammer begrudgingly admitted to himself. 

-*-

“Tony,” Stephen said with a sigh.  
“What?”  
Tony’s eyes were wide as he feigned innocence.  
“You’re embellishing.”  
“I would never,” Tony said, crossing his hand over his heart. “A bastion of truth and sincerity, right here.”  
Stephen snorted into his beer.

-*-

By the time Hammer first saw the bot fights, Tony was several months in to the fights and undefeated, managing to avoid taking damage beyond superficial scrapes to the paint work.  
He figured out the repulser technology he was playing with too, setting up his bot with blasts that could push other bots back and, if aimed correctly, even cut off parts.  
It was his pride and joy, the robot, and he referred to it as his baby.

Tony’s first loss came, predictably, at the hands of Vanko.  
The fight was planned for weeks and was all anyone would talk about in the lead up.  
Bookies took thousands of dollars and the Pit was at capacity by the time the fight rolled around.

Vanko’s grin was feral as his robot tore Tony’s in half.  
Tony managed not to cry, though it was a close call.

When the fight was over, Tony collected the pieces of his beloved bot and started planning how to rebuild it.  
Reinforce the shell, more joint manoeuvrability, new paint work.

He’d noticed Hammer skulking around before the fight, but lost him in the chaos afterwards.  
Rhodey clapped him on the back, said they’d have to do better next time (as though he’d done any of the work at all, Tony grumbled) and they left.

He didn’t give Hammer much thought after that.

-*-

“He was a weasely little shit, but he had a lot of potential,” Tony lamented. “Coulda done something cool if he really tried.”  
Stephen raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.  
“Okay, no, he couldn’t have. But he could’ve made a great lackey, fetching me coffee.”

-*-

Tony threw himself into his work, building the bots bigger and better.  
He’d started with one on all fours for his assessment, but that was just a toy.  
The real bots had started when he created the Mark I, a clunky silver thing that could move and aim and not much else.  
He’d had to poke and prod it to do anything useful, so after a test gone wrong (resulting in more damage to the college labs than anyone had achieved previously) he scrapped it and set about building something sleeker.

The Mark III was destroyed after an altercation with his god-parent, a story he’d kept close to his chest, but it had given him the push to go further with his ideas.

The Mark V was ripped in half by Vanko during their first fight and he almost scrapped the whole project, going back through his old blueprints and quizzing Jarvis for his opinion.

The Mark VI took longer, and needed more care and a new power system.  
The signature circle on the chest was revamped to a triangle to house the new battery set up, and it was back to the customary gold and red paint job.  
New plating was installed to make it more agile and the whole control system was rewired.  
It was a thing of beauty.

The silver equivalent, gifted to Rhodey for “practicing”, was almost as pretty.  
Tony favoured sleekness, the ability to move quickly and strike fast, while Rhodey preferred a bulkier bot to punch hard and stand strong.

“You know,” Tony said to him while they fought in their dorm room, furniture pushed against the wall, “you could have a future in bot fights.”  
“Nah, not my tech. Besides, it’d be embarrassing for you.”  
“What, why?”  
“Because,” Rhodey started, pausing to land a heavy blow that knocked Tony’s bot over and pinning it. “It’d be pretty awful if I showed up and beat you at your own game.”  
Tony whined as he threw the controller to the ground.  
“Wanna see if Cap and Bucky want a go?” Rhodey asked. “Order a pizza, rock up at theirs, watch Bucky annihilate Rogers?”  
Tony grinned, clapping his hands together.  
“I knew I didn’t just keep you around for your looks!”  
Rhodey blew him a kiss, then collected his bot and remote.  
“Come on, they’ll love this.”

-*-

“In case you were wondering, it was worse than Mario Kart.”  
“How?”  
“Rogers destroyed Barnes and there was a tantrum. Foot stomping, arms crossed, pouting tantrum from the Buckmeister.”  
Stephen laughed.  
“Steve’s a pretty sore loser,” Tony explained. “He will go to bed if he loses too badly at a game. But Bucky is… something else. Monopoly is banned at their place for a few reasons, but the primary is that the two of them will get into a physical fight. Once Steve sent Bucky bankrupt so Bucky tackled him and punched him so hard in the thigh he was limping for the rest of the night.”  
“What other reasons?”  
“That it’s banned? Nat, mostly.”  
He shrugged and Stephen nodded.  
“Lines up with what I know of her.”  
“Honestly, it’s Clint you have to watch out for. Nat’s a kitten compared to him.”

-*-

The next piece of assessment was eating him up.  
Figuratively.  
The sickness was eating him up literally, but he chose not to dwell on that.  
A lifetime of mixing chemicals and welding metal in a not-so-safe garage lab had done a lot of things to Tony, but this was the worst.  
Worse than the stomach pumping post-cadmium poisoning.

Ah well, c'est la vie.

He ignored the warning signs, ignored Bruce and Rhodey’s worried comments, ignored everything that wasn't soldering the fucking circuitboard and rewiring the joints to make them more responsive.

It wasn't that much, really, a cut on his arm from an errant piece of metal that didn’t heal as quickly as it should have.  
It was nothing, it was fine.  
It sure as shit wasn’t going to stop him from getting his robot tweaked to perfection.  
Until it did.

The chills were manageable, the fever barely noticeable.  
He slept as much as he could but was more tired than he ever remembered being.  
And he ignored Rhodey, who would check in on him daily and tell him to see a doctor.  
There just wasn’t enough time for that kind of messing around.  
Tony had things to do.

The heart pounding in his ears was nice, he told himself.  
Helped him keep time.

The weirdly spotty memory was irritating, but just a product of not sleeping properly.  
Nothing to worry about.

The fainting, however, was not on the agenda.  
It also really threw a spanner into his day plan.

Rhodey found him though, called the ambulance, handled everything.  
It was cake.  
Nothing to worry about, not really.

Then the doctors wanted to keep him under observation, pump him full of antibiotics, and get him on a drip.  
It was all terribly inconvenient.

Again, Tony repeats, c’est la vie.

Hospital was distinctly less fun than Greys Anatomy had lead him to believe, and he told Rhodey as much when he came to check up on him.  
“Goddammit Tony!” Rhodey cried, hands clenching into fists. “I told you to get this looked at the day you cut it!”  
“It’s nothing, just a few little bacteria friends hanging out in my blood.”  
“Bacteria friends?”  
“It’s fine, Rhodey. No need to get your undies in a twist.”  
Rhodey threw his hands up in the air and stomped out.

-*-

Stephen paused, beer halfway to his lips.  
“You had septicaemia?”  
“Yep,” Tony said with a grin.  
“You’re going to die of stupidity.”  
“Probably.”

-*-

Rhodey didn’t return.  
Not that day, not the next.  
Not when Tony was released from hospital.

Tony gracefully avoided his mother in the waiting room as he fled, climbing into Steve’s beat up old Dodge and yelling at him to drive.  
“Where’s the fire?” Steve grumbled as he drove out of the waiting bay, heading back to campus.  
“Mom,” Tony said with a shrug. “She’s a nightmare, needed to get out of there as soon as I could.”  
“Must be where you get it from.”  
Tony ignored him, pulling out his phone to check his messages.  
He huffed when he saw Rhodey hadn’t responded.  
“Still no word?” Steve asked, turning onto a roundabout and glaring at a driver who didn’t indicate.  
“He’s pissed.”  
“No shit, he’s been holed up with the Commandos all week.”  
“What did he say?”  
“That you’re an asshole who doesn’t care about their own wellbeing.”  
“I mean, he’s right.”  
“Yep. You think about apologising?”  
“I did!” Tony snapped.  
“Properly?”  
"I told him I was sorry and I wouldn’t do it again.”  
“What did you apologise for?”  
“What?”  
“What did you apologise for?” Steve repeated, sounding tired.  
“For not listening to him.”  
“Fucking christ. That’s not what he’s upset about. He’s upset you don’t look after yourself, not that you didn’t listen to him.”  
Tony paused at that, frowning as he thought it through.  
“Well…” he started, before Steve cut him off.  
“I’m right, and you can’t say anything to change that or wriggle out of it.”  
“Shut up, Rogers.”

Rhodey continued to avoid Tony for the next week, staying with the Howling Commandos and sitting as far away from him as he could during classes.  
He still came to the bot fights though.  
Tony counted that as a win.

-*-

“How did you go on the assignment?” Stephen asked.  
“What?”  
“The assignment that you almost killed yourself over.”  
“Oh! Right! Yeah, nailed it. 100%. Easy as pie.”  
Stephen raised an eyebrow at him.  
“Okay, maybe not pie, but I did it. Passed with flying colours, and got some cool new ideas for my little fighting bot too, so overall a success.”  
“What the actual fuck, Stark,” Stephen said flatly, shaking his head.  
“Look, the assignment has basically nothing to do with the story, the sickness is just a side note in explaining why Rhodey was mad at me.”  
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that none of your stories actually have anything to do with college.”  
“Yeah, this is just a backdrop to our shenanigans. I actually don’t even go here.”

-*-

Tony had been out of hospital for three weeks when Rhodey spoke to him again.  
Well, yelled at him.

Tony woke to someone pounding on his door.  
“Get out of bed!” Rhodey shouted. “Get up and get out!”  
“Where’s the fucking fire?” Tony demanded as he pulled his bedroom door open.  
“Under your ass, if you’ve got any sense about it.”  
Rhodey pushed past him, moving to stand in the middle of the room, hand on his hips.  
“What's happened?” Tony asked carefully, pushing the door shut.  
“Hammer.”  
“What, did I leave one somewhere weird again? I told you, the spanner in the shower was an oversight and won’t happen again.”  
“No, Hammer, the guy. Justin.”  
“What did that little shit do now?”  
“He’s planning on fighting.”  
“Fighting what? Like, bot fighting?”  
Tony whistled, grinning.  
“About time he stepped up to the mat. I don’t know why it matters though, I’m still going to crush him.”  
“Tony,” Rhodey said sharply. “Take this seriously.”  
“What’s there to be serious about?”  
“Vanko is helping him.”  
Tony shut up at that, frowning.  
“Yeah, exactly. They worked together on some crazy bot. I was talking to Cho and he reckons it looks really similar to yours. Looks like Hammer got a hold of your plans or specs, then made his own.”  
“A pale imitation, I’m sure,” Tony said loftily. “It’s nothing, Rhodey. I’ll manage.”

-*-

“Predictably,” Tony said offhandedly. “It was not nothing. And I couldn’t manage it.”  
“Shocking.”  
“You know, you’re really sarcastic. And really mean.”  
“Shocking,” Stephen repeated, in the same tone and with the same bored expression.  
“You could at least try to be nice to me! How else are you gonna become friends with me?”  
Stephen shot him a look again, then shook his head.  
“Shut up. Finish your story.”  
“Which one is it, Stephen? Shut up or finish the story?”  
“I don’t care,” Stephen said, eyes cold as ice. “Just pick one.”  
“In that case, I’ll finish the story. So, like I said, it wasn’t nothing and I couldn’t manage it.”

-*-

Tony ate his words the second he arrived at the next bot fighting session.  
Hammer stood in the centre of the circle, daring anyone to challenge him, holding his bot up in the air.  
“Fuck, I hate it when Rhodey is right,” he muttered as he saw the bot in Hammer’s hands.  
It was _identical_ to Tony’s bot.  
Fucking hell.

“Rhodey is going to have a field day with this,” Tony muttered to himself as he started setting up.  
The crowd watched on as he stood on one side of the ring, staring down Hammer.  
Vanko stood beside him, signature toothpick in his mouth.  
His grin was downright feral.

The fight was the only one scheduled for the night, expected to be the fight of the year.  
Maybe even the decade.  
Everyone who was anyone in the scene had made an appearance.  
Hammer had sent out summons for a one on one fight with Tony and it had turned into the biggest hyped fight any of them had ever seen.  
Especially once it was revealed Vanko was helping Hammer.  
Even Rhodey, was there, leaning against the wall, face impassive.

Hammer smirked as he watched Tony.  
“Still using that old thing?” he asked mockingly. “Thought you would have upgraded it by now.”  
“I did. And then I upgraded it again. And _then_ , because I decided I didn’t just want to beat you, I want to destroy you, I upgraded it once more.”  
Hammer laughed, eyes flicking to Vanko.  
“I think you’ll find this one a bit harder to beat than the old one.”  
“Aren’t there rules against using other people’s tech?” Tony asked, voice disinterested. “That looks like my tech with Vanko’s upgrades.”  
“Cute, but not quite. It’s all mine.”  
“Unlikely,” Tony shot back.

He calibrated his bot and stood to attention.  
“Alright, Tony?” Cho asked, appearing beside him.  
“Yeah, all good.”  
“Heard you got into some trouble.”  
“Nothing a quick ER visit couldn’t fix,” Tony said with a laugh.  
Cho whistled then grinned.  
“There’s a lot of money riding on tonight from what I hear. Do us proud, destroy the fucker.”  
“Can do.”  
Tony saluted and Cho headed out into the crowd.

The referee counted the fight in, and everything else melted away.  
Tony was back in his element.  
And he was going to win.  
Maybe.  
Oh shit, what the fuck has Vanko done to his tech?  
That can’t be legal.  
Okay, maybe he wasn’t going to win.  
Probably.  
Definitely.  
Fuck.

-*-

“He beat you?” Stephen asked, obviously surprised.  
“Not quite,” Tony said quickly, patting his arm. “It was fucking close though. If it wasn’t for Rhodey, it’d be game over.”  
“What happened?”  
“I’m getting to that. Shush so I can finish the story.”  
“Less sound effect though, please.”  
“No, the sound effects are what makes it!”

-*-

Tony was fucked.  
Absolutely, undoubtedly, undeniably, _fucked_.

The bot was the same size mostly, but had something on the shoulders that made them look bigger and more intimidating.  
The face plate was the same, but everything else?  
It was amped up, maxed out.  
Vanko had done something akin to magic.  
It was faster, stronger, tougher… 

Hammer’s bot stopped, planted its feet, and Tony realised what was happening as it played out.  
The shoulder upgrades?  
They were guns.  
Fucking guns!  
The shot pulses of energy, similar to Tony’s own repulser tech, that made his bot spasm and the controls go haywire.  
He swore loudly, trying to duck his bot out of the way of the shots.

His bot started limping and he saw red.  
He swung it around to punch Hammer’s bot in the head, flexing the hand to pull at the face plate.  
Hammer went to move his bot but it didn’t move.  
Tony looked up to see Hammer hitting his controller and pushing on the joysticks, but the bot remained motionless.  
Then it beeped and the power source went from shining white to shining orange.  
Behind Hammer, Vanko smiled.

Tony moved his bot quickly, pulling it back towards him, as Vanko flexed his hands and started using his own controller.

Vanko was objectively a better fighter than Hammer - smarter, faster, more in tune.  
He’d been doing it for years, and had won almost every time.  
Tony panicked.

He forced his bot as far away as he could, trying to figure out a game plan.  
He really should have seen this coming, in hindsight.

Vanko swung Hammer’s (Vanko’s? Their?) bot around to face Tony.  
“Nice try,” Vanko spat. “But now? You’re mine.”  
“Fuck no I ain’t,” Tony snapped.

Tony ducked to the side as Vanko’s bot started whirring, the power source glowing brighter and brighter.  
He moved his bot to tackle Vanko’s, swearing loudly as it bounced off the stockier bot.

“What the fuck?” Hammer yelled, turning on Vanko.  
He shoved him, hard, as he yelled at him.  
He swore and spat, but Vanko just watched him with the same cold smile.

Vanko’s bot started whirring again, the sound similar to the buzz of Tony’s repulsers.

Tony went to take a step to the side but a hand caught his arm, gripping tightly at his elbow.  
“Tony,” Rhodey said urgently. “We gotta go.”  
He was dimly aware of the sidelines, realising that the crowd had gone and the lights had been lowered.  
Had he really been so focused he hadn’t noticed?  
“What?” he asked, eyes still trained on Hammer as he yelled.  
“We have to leave, now.”  
Tony turned to look at him, a question on the tip of his tongue, but he shut his mouth with a snap when he saw Rhodey’s face.  
“Right, leaving, now.”  
He rushed to grab his bot, then ran, following Rhodey out a side entrance.

They sprinted down the alley, Rhodey leading as they weaved through side streets.  
After a minute, Tony stopped, bending over and clutching his sides.  
He dropped the bot and wheezed as he tried to catch his breath.  
“Come on Tony, we don’t have time for this,” Rhodey urged, grabbing the bot. “We gotta move.”  
“Why? What’s going on?”  
Rhodey went to answer, but the sound of a siren stopped him.  
Tony’s face paled and they nodded at each other, taking off again.

Three more roads, two jumped fences, and fifteen minutes spent hiding in a ditch behind bushes, and they were back on campus.  
“What the fuck was that?” Tony asked. “Police, Rhodey? What the fuck happened?”  
“Okay, don’t be mad, but I called the cops on it.”  
Tony was stunned, eyes wide and mouth gaping.  
“So, you know how I said that Hammer was up to something and you said it’d be fine?”  
“And it was!”  
“It wasn’t, Vanko was about to crush you.”  
“No, he wasn’t! I was going to destroy him.”  
“You weren’t, but that’s beside the point. I was talking to Cho and we came up with a plan.”

They had gotten the word out to all the main players, told them not to place bets but to show up anyway.  
Once the fight was underway Rhodey called the cops while Cho ushered everyone out.  
One anonymous tip about illegal gambling and bot fighting later, Rhodey was grabbing Tony and it was over.

“Wait, they can’t do shit if they have no proof,” Tony said once Rhodey had laid it all out.  
“Not quite. I made sure the bookie was there.”  
“Hammer uses a proxy, I know that for sure.”  
“Yeah, he does. But I put a bet in his name anyway.”  
“What?”  
“Justin Hammer bet a lot of money that you would win, funnily enough. Vanko bet a lot that Hammer would. Both used their names. They were the only bets made tonight.”  
“You… You’re fucking _diabolical_ ,” Tony said, awed.  
“I learned it watching you.”  
Tony laughed, loud and long, and Rhodey joined in.

“You know,” Tony said eventually. “That was a really nice thing to do for the guy you’ve been hating for the last month and a bit.”  
“I don't hate you Tony, never have. I was just mad at you. And then it was better if Hammer thought I was still mad.”  
“Well… Yeah, okay, that makes sense.”  
“Sorry I didn’t warn you.”  
“Sorry I was a dickhead and didn’t listen to you. And then avoided you. And didn’t apologise properly. Basically, sorry for the last however long it’s been. I’ll try to be better.”  
“Just fucking go to the doctor when you get injured, dude. It’s not even like you have to worry about money, between your fortune and the health insurance your dad pays for.”  
“Yeah, I have no excuse really.”  
“And maybe stop being so goddamn stupid. You’re sending me grey.”  
“All’s well that ends well though, right?”  
“Yeah, I guess.”  
“Wanna play Mario Kart?”  
“Fuck yeah.”

-*-

“So Vanko gets arrested and Hammer looks like an idiot.”  
“He was expelled shortly afterwards, actually.”  
“And you wonder why you are all popular,” Stephen said, shaking his head.  
“What, is it not because I’m really cool?”  
“People are afraid of you. Rogers and Barnes are cool because they’re footballers, Thor is generally likeable. But you, you’re scary.”  
“Scary?”  
“And you sleep around.”  
“Ouch, judgey.”  
“No judgement,” Stephen said quickly. “It just makes you untouchable. You don’t care what anyone thinks, the one guy who went against you was subsequently expelled, and you’ve not had a stable relationship while you’ve been here.”  
“Wow, that’s… completely fair actually. You forgot the part where I’m brilliant and also incredibly rich.”  
“That doesn’t help.”  
“Or maybe it does.”  
Tony waggled his eyebrows, and Stephen laughed despite himself.  
“Anyway, next up was Bucky’s birthday, which started with a group chat and ended in us being superheroes.”  
“Superheroes?”  
“You’ll see,” Tony said with a grin.

-*-

_Steve Rogers added Tony Stark to the group chat  
Steve Rogers added Thor Odinson to the group chat  
Steve Rogers added Bruce Banner to the group chat  
Steve Rogers added James Rhodes to the group chat  
Steve Rogers renamed the chat “Party Planning”_

Steve: So, Bucky’s birthday is coming up in a few weeks.  
Steve: Party at ours?  
Steve: It’ll be a surprise party, so no telling him.  
Tony: u kno im in  
Tony: wat do u need us to bring?  
Steve: Yourselves. Bucky has insisted no gifts and I’ll get all the supplies together.  
Thor: I am excited, brothers! We do not get to celebrate each other often and birthdays are a big cause for celebration!  
Tony: … dude u gotta stop reading those epics  
Tony: theyre warping ur mind  
Bruce: Anyway, yes Steve, that sounds lovely! We’ll be there and help you set up if you need!  
Tony: i never agreed to this  
James: I did though so shut up and help.  
Tony: … fine… i hate u tho

-*-

“Did you help?”  
“I resent the implication.”  
“That’s not an answer.”  
“No, I didn’t,” Tony admitted with a sheepish grin. “Not really. I just kinda skirted around everyone while they were putting everything together and pretended I was too busy.”  
“You’re an ass,” Stephen said off-handedly, drinking another sip of beer.  
Tony spluttered, throwing his hands in the air.  
“Well… I just… You’re an ass!”  
“That’s a given.”  
“I… Look… Fuck it, I’m going to ignore your interruption and just tell you about the party.”  
“If you insist.”  
Tony mock-glared at Stephen, who just smiled wanly in return.

-*-

Bucky was out for the day of his birthday, visiting his parents and siblings.  
He was the eldest of four, Steve told them while they set up, hanging banners and making food.  
Growing up, Bucky had looked after them all, and was especially excited to see his sister Becca, who had just started junior high and was a certified genius.  
“You’d like her, I reckon,” Steve told Tony, who was sitting and fiddling with code on a tablet while everyone else decorated.  
“If she’s anything like her brother, she can stay away from me,” Tony said dryly.

Bucky came home several hours later, stilling when he pushed open the door to a dark apartment.  
“Steve? You here?” he called tentatively.  
The lights flicked on, and everyone jumped out, yelling “surprise!”  
Bucky dropped to a crouch in surprise, holding fists up as if about to fight.  
His face morphed from fear to shock to glee in the span of a few seconds, and he stood with a grin.  
“Holy shit, you guys!” he yelled, clapping his hands together. “This is the tits!”  
“Glad you like it, Buck,” Steve told him, moving to hug him.  
“Hell yeah, I’ve always wanted a surprise party!”  
“Happy birthday!” everyone cried, then the rest of the lights were turned on.

The rest of the football team, some cheerleaders, and a few of Bucky’s classmates had joined the party, all piled into their room.  
Bucky looked around in awe, then said “shots?”  
There was a cheer, and the party kicked off.

The group was settled in around the couch, Tony facing off Thor in a game of poker, everyone else having lost their money and instead watching on in interest.  
“First I take your money, then I take your girl, then I take your identity. I will destroy you,” Tony told Thor, eyes narrowed as he tried to read his tells.  
“Verily,” Thor agreed. “But not before you have also taken my home and my family, I’m sure.”  
Tony watched him carefully.  
“You are a sneaky sneak who sneaks and I will have you!” he shouted, laying out his cards triumphantly.  
Thor grinned, revealing his cards one by one.  
“It appears, brother, that I have you.”  
Everyone yelled as Thor’s royal flush was revealed, and Tony pouted.  
Thor swept all the chips from the middle into his pile, grinning.  
“Why can’t I read you?” Tony asked, throwing his hands up in the air in disgust.  
“It’s the grin,” Rhodey told him. “You can’t tell if he’s bluffing when he just keeps fucking smiling like the cat who got the cream.”  
“I’ll have his cream,” Tony shot back, then paled. “Oh my god, pretend I didn’t say that.”  
Thor laughed heartily, throwing his head back.

“Now, I know you said no gifts,” Tony started, turning to Bucky. “But there’s some upgraded prosthetic tech in my lab waiting for whenever you have a chance.”  
Bucky grinned, nodding.  
“That’s a gift I can get behind.”  
“I uhhh, also have a gift,” Steve admitted. “Wait here.”  
He disappeared into his room, then returned with a folder.  
“Stevie,” Bucky said, frowning.  
“I didn’t spend money, so it doesn’t count,” Steve told him petulantly, then handed the folder over.  
Bucky took it tentatively, opening it to look at the contents.  
“Oh holy shit,” he muttered. “Oh holy goddamn motherfucking shit.”  
“Is that… good?” Steve asked, rocking back on his heels nervously.  
“This is probably the coolest thing I’ve ever been given!”  
“What is it?” Bruce asked, leaning forward slightly.  
Bucky held the folder up, showing them a drawing Steve had done.

The drawing looked like a comic book cover, depicting Bucky, prosthetic and all.  
He was wearing a tactical vest and pants, the same big heavy boots he wore regularly, and his silver arm was visible with a big red star on the bicep.  
His hair was out, and he had what looked to be greasepaint around his eyes.  
He was holding a pistol, a rifle slung across his back, and he looked dangerous.  
The title proclaimed “The Winter Soldier”, and Steve had even included an issue number and name (“#1: The Bitter March”).

“What the fuck?” Tony asked, ignoring the sharp look Rhodey shot him. “That’s so fucking cool.”  
“Verily,” Thor agreed, leaning forward to see it better.  
“We knew you could draw, but this is awesome,” Rhodey said to Steve, who was blushing as they all talked.  
“I do more still life and portrait stuff, but yeah, I’ve dabbled in comics,” Steve said quietly, grin growing as they all fawned over the picture.  
“I want one,” Tony announced. “Make me one.”  
“Maybe.”  
“No, no maybes. I will pay you exorbitant amounts of money. Make. Me. One.”  
“How about you let me know your ideas and I’ll see what I can do.”

-*-

“Oh, is that why you all call him soldier?” Stephen asked, realisation dawning. “Ohhhhh, and if you all have one, that explains War Machine.”  
“Yep! He’s undergoing a rebrand though. We’ll get to that in a minute, first we have to get through the rest of the evening.”  
“The rest? That’s not the end?”  
“God no, after this Bucky asked how we managed to pull it together.”  
“Did you tell the truth?”  
“The truth?”  
“That Rogers did it all while _some_ of you helped.”  
“Yeah, we did. Also told him about the group chat. He was kinda upset that the first group chat we had didn’t include him, so we had to make some quick changes.”

-*-

_Tony Stark renamed the chat “Drinking Buddies”  
Tony Stark added James Barnes to Drinking Buddies_

James: yall wtf this is so sweet i love u all  
Tony: ewww feelings  
James: Tony, don’t be rude.  
Bruce: We have to get some nicknames going or it’s going to get really confusing really fast.

_James Barnes set his nickname as “Bucky”  
Tony Stark set the nickname for James as “Rhodey"_

Bucky: better?  
Steve: Better.  
Bucky: anyway lets go fuck shit up  
Bucky: theres a bottle of tequila callin my name  
Tony: ditto but jaeger  
Steve: Well, this is going to get messy.  
Tony: drinking buddies  
Tony: roll out  
Bruce: Not quite as good as Autobots, but we can make it work.  
Tony: i said roll out. go have a drink instead of picking on me  
Bruce: I’m DD  
Tony: u dont even drive! and we all live a 15min walk away max!!!  
Steve: Tony…  
Tony: okay fine  
Tony: every1 except bruce who is a nerd  
Tony: ROLL OUT

Tony stowed his phone in his pocket, shot a thumbs up at Bucky, who was in the middle of pouring shots, and continued facing off against Thor in poker.  
Thor cleared him out for over a grand in the end.

-*-

Stephen laughed, loudly, draining the last of his beer and adding the empty to the pile between them.  
“Oh, I probably should have warned you. Most of these stories revolve around us getting drunk or getting into trouble.”  
“I figured,” Stephen said dryly. “It seems like that’s all you all do.”  
“I would resent that, but it’s absolutely true.”  
They grinned at each other, then Stephen opened another beer and gestured at him to continue.

-*- 

Shots weren’t a good idea, in Tony’s opinion.  
Tony, who was the most well versed of them all in drinking and debauchery, steered clear of shots unless everyone was doing them, and even then took it slow.  
The person currently vomiting in the toilet was a perfect example of why he did that.

“You all good, Bucky?” he asked, pushing open the door.  
Bucky waved him off, then continued emptying his stomach.  
“Do you want me to get Steve?”  
“For the love of all that is fuckin’ holy, please don’t.”  
Tony sighed then stepped into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.  
He sat down on the floor, drawing his knees up to his chin.

Bucky coughed then stood to rinse his mouth out under the tap.

He sat back down, folding his arms on the toilet seat and resting his chin on his wrist.  
“Just in case,” he told Tony with a frown.  
“All good, Barnes,” Tony said, reaching out to hesitantly pat his back. “What’s up with you and Steve? I’m surprised he’s not already here, kicking down the door."  
“I’ve known him since kindy, did y’know?” Bucky told him, ignoring the question. “We used to be great old friends. Found him gettin’ his ass handed to ‘im in a car park when we were about 8, bullies tryna take him on. I scared ‘em off. I was real big, y’see. Taller than ev’ryone else.”  
His accent was always there, the drawl of a kid who grew up in Brooklyn, but it was more obvious when he drank, voice rolling as he hung his head over the toilet bowl.  
“Taller than Steve?” Tony asked, eyebrow raised. “I’d pay to see that; he’s a fucking mountain.”  
“He didn’t used to be, he used to be a lil guy, real fuckin’ small an’ boney. Usedta get picked on a lot. A lot a lot. Could never keep his trap shut when he saw something he didn’ like.”  
“That hasn’t changed, at least.”  
“Nah, he’s always been a hero. Always tryna help out the lil guy. Even when he was littler than them.”  
Bucky snorted out a laugh, head lolling dangerously.  
“So you saved him from bullies?” Tony prompted, prodding Bucky’s arm.  
His head snapped upright and he looked at Tony with glassy eyes.  
“More than once. He was trouble as a kid. Woulda fought anyone, anywhere, for any reason. Not so good when you’re 80 pounds soakin’ wet. I hadta keep ‘im outta all sorts of messes. Once he got beat up ‘cause this guy was talkin’ shit about soldiers. He don’t mention it much, but ‘is dad was army. Died in combat. This guy was sayin’ that soldiers were idiots for fightin’. Steve stood up an’ said there was nothin’ stupid about fightin’ for what you believe in. Fuckin’ idiot, this guy was a foot taller than ‘im. ‘Ad to save ‘is ass, got detention for m’troubles.”  
“You were a good friend, better than most.”  
Tony drained his cup, then rinsed it out under the tap, filling it with water and handing it to Bucky.  
“Yeah, I like to think so. Don’t matter much though, we went to different high schools. His ma had to move ‘cause the rent was too much.”  
“But you found each other again.”  
“Pure luck,” Bucky said, sitting back and leaning against the bathroom wall, taking a long drink from the cup.  
“That’s awesome. Real story book stuff.”  
“It’s more like a fuckin’ movie at this point. One o’ those stupid fuckin’ rom coms that my sister alway makes me watch.”  
Tony froze, eyes widening.  
“What?”  
“He’s… Oh fuck,” Bucky groaned, leaning his head back and grumbling.  
“What did you just say?”  
“I fuckin’… Shit, fuck, god fuckin’ dammit. I think I love him, Tony.”  
Tony didn’t move, tensing.  
“Fuck. ‘M sorry Tony. I didn’ mean to.”  
“No, no, it’s okay,” he said quietly. “I just didn’t realise you felt that way.”  
Bucky shot him a wry grin, eyes red rimmed and face pale.  
“Not what you’d expect of the Winter Soldier?”  
“Just didn’t think you were into dudes,” Tony said with a shrug, smiling at him. “And you’re right, very rom com of you to fall in love with your best friend from school, who is now your roommate.”  
“I didn’ write it, I’m just livin’ it.”  
“You’re a disaster, Bucky Barnes.”  
“I know, I know. Steve reminds me reg’ly.”  
“He’s a disaster too, he still uses a Nokia brick.”  
Bucky laughed, then his face fell.  
“Please don’ tell ‘im.”  
“I won’t, don’t worry.”  
“Lovin’ your best friend sucks,” Bucky said vehemently, shaking his head and groaning.  
“Wouldn’t know,” Tony told him. “Don’t think I’ve ever loved someone in my life. I think too much with my dick to let my heart have a say. You should probably not do that though, can’t imagine it would help if Steve caught you balls deep in someone.”  
“That’d be a fuckin’ laugh riot.”  
“Does he know you’re into men?”  
“It’s never come up.”  
“He’s cool about it, if you’re scared. He’s seen me stick my tongue down some throats in the past while and never had a bad word to say.”  
“Maybe one day.”  
Bucky gestured vaguely with his hand, wrinkling his nose.

There was a knock at the door, then a quiet “Bucky? You in there?”  
“Yeah, ‘m here,” Bucky called back, and they heard Steve sigh.  
“Everything okay?” Steve asked.  
“All fine here, Cap,” Tony said, standing to open the door.  
“Don’t,” Bucky started to say to Tony, who shook his head.  
“Secret’s safe with me.”  
Tony pulled open the door.  
“He ate some bad fish,” he told Steve, smirking.  
“Was the fish named tequila?” Steve asked. “Or maybe jaeger?”  
Bucky groaned, covering his face with his hands.  
“I can look after him if you want,” Steve said to Tony.  
“God knows you owe him,” Tony snarked, laughing when Steve frowned.  
“What?”  
“Nothing, just keep your boy outta trouble.”  
“Will do.”  
Steve turned to Bucky, kneeling beside him.  
“All good?”  
“I want sleep,” Bucky said petulantly. “Big sleep.”  
“Big sleep for a big boy,” Steve teased, pouting comically.  
“I will not dignify that with a response,” Bucky enunciated carefully, folding his arms and frowning at him.  
Steve laughed, then stood up, pulling Bucky up with him.  
“Come on, let me get you to bed.”

Tony ducked out, down the hallway and back to the party. 

-*-

“Barnes and Rogers?” Stephen asked, eyebrow raised.  
“Yeah, I’m sure you’ve heard, but Bucky was into him way back in the beginning. Probably since they were kids, honestly.”  
“A love story for the ages,” Stephen said dryly, tone bordering on sarcastic.  
“Rom com as _fuck_ ,” Tony agreed. “He was so not happy the next morning.”

-*-

The next morning saw the team picking themselves up from where they’d fallen.  
Steve and Bucky had made it to their beds and Tony and Rhodey had taken the couch.  
Bruce went back to his room at some point, Tony wasn’t exactly sure when, but knocked on the door at 11am, arms full of McDonalds bags.  
Tony woke with a jolt at the knock, dragging himself off the couch and half crawling to the door.  
“Thought you all might want some sustenance,” Bruce said, handing Tony a bag as he walked in.  
“You might be my soulmate,” Tony remarked, opening the bag and digging for a hash brown.

“Washapp’nin’?” Rhodey asked groggily, waving half-heartedly at Bruce.  
“Breakfast Rhodes, up you get,” Tony told him, throwing him a McMuffin.  
“Fuck yeah,” he breathed, peeling off the wrapper and biting down with a groan.  
Steve and Bucky appeared shortly after that, Bucky looking decidedly worse for wear.  
They look the offered food gratefully, eating happily.

“So, is there a reason Thor is passed out in the hallway?” Bruce asked once everyone was finished.  
“What?” Tony exclaimed, grabbing his phone and scrambling to get to the hallway, everyone following close behind.  
Thor was laid out, shirt and one shoe missing.  
His key was in hand and he was lying in front of his door, snoring gently.  
“This is the best,” Tony said quietly, taking photos on his phone.

“Oi, big guy, get up,” Bucky said, moving to kick Thor’s side lightly.  
Thor woke with a snort, looking up at them, confused.  
“Why are you all in my room?”  
“We’re not,” Tony said with a shit eating grin.  
Thor seemed to realise where he was and sat up, blushing.  
“Oh dear,” was all he said.

They herded him into Steve and Bucky’s kitchen, taking pity on him and handing him what was left of the food.  
His good mood returned instantly and he grinned at Bruce brilliantly as he ripped open the wrappers.

“Hey, Tony,” Bucky said tentatively, and Tony nodded his head at Bucky’s bedroom door.  
Bucky’s mouth dropped open, then he closed it, standing and walking into the room.  
Tony followed closely after, shutting the door behind him.  
“So, about last night,” Bucky began, rubbing the back of his neck.  
“Don’t worry about it,” Tony told him. “I’m not going to tell anyone or anything. Do your own thing dude, I don’t care. Just as long as you’re okay.”  
He paused to look at Bucky properly.  
“You are okay, right?”  
“Embarrassingly into my roommate and a drunken-slash-hungover mess, but okay.”  
Tony nodded once, then clapped him on the back.  
“It’s fine, we’re all drunken-slash-hungover messes. I’m not into my roommate though.”  
“Who are you into?” Bucky asked curiously.  
“No one. Everyone is either shockingly mediocre or entirely off limits.”  
“Like who?”  
“Not your boy, don’t worry,” he said with a snort. “He’s too blonde.”  
Bucky laughed, then shook his head.  
“He’s not my boy.”  
“Come on, let’s get back to the crew. I have a feeling Thor will be wanting seconds when he’s finished demolishing what we’ve got.”  
Bucky laughed again, opening the door and heading out into the lounge room.  
“Are you two alright?” Steve asked, looking up when the door opened.  
“All good, just debriefing,” Bucky told him. “Apparently I’m embarrassing when I drink.”  
“Don’t know if I’d say that, Buck,” Tony said, winking. “It was almost endearing. Although I didn’t know you had an accent that strong. Or could swear that much in one sentence.”  
Bucky flipped him off, grabbing the last hash brown and settling in on the couch.

“So,” Tony said, after Thor had finished eating. “Steven, is there a particular reason that only Bucky gets to have a cool alter ego?”  
“I am jealous,” Thor admitted. “I did not know you could draw so well.”  
“We should all get to be superheroes, right?” Tony continued, elbowing Bruce.  
“What? Oh, yeah, sure, let’s all be superheroes,” Bruce agreed, without much enthusiasm.  
“Well, I did say we could talk about it,” Steve acknowledged.

Tony immediately set about detailing his ideas to Steve, who jotted it all down in his notebook.  
Thor and Bucky joined in, shooting ideas and plans.  
“Oh, and make Bruce a rage monster,” Tony added. “He is scary when he gets mad.”  
Steve turned to Bruce, baffled.  
“He’s right,” Bruce agreed, shrugging. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

-*-

Tony scrolled through his messages quickly, grinning when he found what he was looking for.  
“Here, look at this,” he said, holding his phone out to Stephen. “This is the beginning of the team.”  
Stephen took the phone gingerly, reading through.

-*-

_Tony messaged “Drinking Buddies”_

Tony: wats our team name?  
Thor: We should be... the Revengers…  
Tony: wat r we revenging?  
Thor: ...life?  
Bucky: that’s fucking stupid my dude  
Steve: What about the Avengers?  
Bucky: still dumb but i will allow it

_Tony Stark renamed the chat “The Avengers”  
Tony Stark set his nickname as “Iron Man”  
Iron Man set the nickname for Bucky as “The Winter Soldier”  
Iron Man set the nickname for Thor as “God of Thunder”  
Iron Man set the nickname for Bruce as “The Hulk”  
Iron Man set the nickname for Rhodey as “War Machine"  
Iron Man set the nickname for Steve as “Captain America”_

Iron Man: so, whens next party?  
The Winter Soldier: how can you even be thinking about drinking right now?  
The Winter Soldier: i was doing so well and then i vommed in a trash can on the way to class  
The Winter Soldier: i might actually be dying  
Iron Man: im a futurist bucky. i look to the future  
God of Thunder: Jane is free from her physics obligations in two weeks time, perhaps then?  
Iron Man: hell yeah  
God of Thunder: Verily.  
War Machine: Wait, why is this my nickname?  
Iron Man: bc ur a machine  
War Machine: Why war?  
God of Thunder: War is noble, as are you.  
Iron Man: sure lets go with that  
The Winter Soldier: i heard steve sigh from the other room  
Captain America: You’re all exhausting.  
God of Thunder: Verily.  
Iron Man: verily  
The Winter Soldier: verily  
The Hulk: Verily.

-*-

“You know, you don’t have to show me the screenshots,” Stephen said.  
“But I want to. How else can I make you understand?”  
“You could explain it.”  
“Explaining isn’t my forte, showing you screenshots is.”  
“Wait, if Steve uses an old Nokia, how did he make a group chat?”  
“I gave him a phone.”  
“You... gave him a phone?”  
Stephen’s voice was decidedly neutral and Tony grinned at him.  
“Yeah, I got sick of seeing him play Snake on the shitty old thing.”  
“Do you buy all your friends new phones?”  
“If you want one, I can get you one. Perk of having your name on a building and all that.”  
“I’m fine, I have the new iPhone.”  
Tony made a strangled sound.  
“You… That’s… Urgh!”  
“I have never seen Steve holding a phone, especially not a Stark one.”  
“He only uses it for the group chats. Otherwise he won’t use it. He writes all of his assignments by hand and doesn’t use Netflix unless we make him. He watches what’s on TV, like a rube!”  
“Not everyone needs to be surrounded by technology.”  
“And those people are wrong,” Tony declared, holding out his phone to Stephen. “Come on, there’s more.”

-*-

_The Hulk messaged “The Avengers”_

The Hulk: Okay, don’t be mad.  
The Hulk: But I kinda invited Pepper Potts to the drinks night next week  
Captain America: Oh, that’s fine. She’s lovely.  
The Winter Soldier: a real fine dame  
The Hulk: And Clint Barton  
Captain America: WHAT  
The Winter Soldier: HULK WHY  
The Hulk: I PANICKED  
Iron Man: seriously??? barton??? he’s a menace!!!!!!!!!!!!  
The Hulk: He set off some prank and upset Pepper and she was yelling and I panicked!  
The Hulk: She threatened to call campus security and get the RA involved and I didn’t know what to do, so I just stepped in and invited them to drinks so they would calm down  
Iron Man: did it work?  
The Hulk: Well, it threw her off. She just said “okay, I guess” and then wandered off  
The Hulk: Apparently Clint owes me a boon now for saving him  
The Hulk: I’ve asked him not to involve me or Pepper in any of his pranks anymore  
The Hulk: He agreed, but said he’s bringing a friend with him for drinks  
God of Thunder: Who?  
The Hulk: I don’t know; who is he friends with?  
Iron Man: romanov  
The Winter Soldier: romanov?  
The Winter Soldier: oh. OH. OH NO  
Captain America: Should I know who that is?The Winter Soldier: idk anything about her but rumours. she apparently can kill a man with her thighs  
Iron Man: id believe that  
The Winter Solder: she and barton are always running around together causing trouble  
The Hulk: I’m so sorry guys!  
God of Thunder: This could be good! It would do us well to have Barton as our friend, rather than potential adversary!  
Captain America: He’s right, Barton is a prank master. Definitely someone we want working with us, rather than against us.  
Iron Man: u r gonna eat those words captain  
Iron Man: guaranteed

-*-

“I was wondering when those two joined the party,” Stephen said dryly. “Considering Romanov spends so much time with Rogers and Barnes.”  
“Nat and Steve’s friendship is bizarre and beautiful. Nat and Thor’s is better, he really is their patron saint.”  
“What?”  
“What? Oh, never mind.”  
“Okay… So…?”  
“So we all go to Steve and Bucky’s for the drinks night, excited and afraid.”

-*-

“This is my beloved, Jane,” Thor announced when Jane and Darcy arrived, gesturing to the small brunette. “And this is her roommate, my shield sister, Darcy.”  
“Shield sister?” Bruce asked, sounding like he was already exhausted by the antics of the evening.  
“She tased me when we first met, it was only fitting she get a title as strong.”  
“I prefer Darcy Lewis: Certified Nightmare,” Darcy said with a shrug, grinning up at Thor.

Tony had seen Jane around, but he’d never met her.  
She was usually up to her elbows in physics nonsense, brain in space while she worked out equations and hand built equipment.  
She and Tony hit it off immediately, talking about circuit board creation methods, and Tony seriously wondered why he’d never stopped to say hi in the labs.

Darcy was a whole other kettle of fish.  
She was loud, bright, beautiful, and used her body for pure evil, convincing several people to be drink runners and get her snacks.  
“Poli-sci degree does you some good,” she said when Tony raised an eyebrow at her. “Learn about how people work.”  
Bruce returned then, handing her a full cup of a tequila/lemonade mix that smelled dangerously strong.  
“Thank you Mister Banner,” she said sweetly, patting his cheek.  
“Woah, hold up!” Tony exclaimed, clearly affronted. “You never get me drinks!”  
“You haven’t earned them, Tony,” Bruce said with a small smirk.  
“Yeah, obviously,” Darcy agreed. “One day you’ll be on my level.”  
Tony huffed, recognising the jealousy curling through his chest and quashing it immediately.  
“Well, one day I’ll have a rack that magnificent,” he said with an over the top pout. “One day.”  
“Keep dreaming, Stark,” Darcy shot at him, grinning. “The chest has nothing to do with my charm.”  
Thor interrupted them to ask Bruce a question, and Tony grinned at Darcy.  
“You’re good people, Lewis.”  
“So are you, Stark.”

The party got loud quickly, Pepper managing to sneak in without Thor announcing her presence.  
Clint and Natasha arrived shortly afterwards, both in black on black, eyes glittering dangerously.

“Here we go,” Tony said quietly to Rhodey, watching the two newcomers warily.  
“Have some faith, this will probably be fine,” Rhodey told him, but Tony could tell he didn’t quite believe it himself.  
Natasha turned to look at them, eyes narrowed as she watched them both together.  
“Speak of the devil,” Tony muttered.  
“And she shall appear,” Bucky agreed, moving past them to get another drink.

Natasha and Clint stood mostly to the side at first, moving in tandem as they fetched drinks and talked, heads close as they muttered.

After half an hour of them standing together quietly, Thor decided he’d had enough.  
“Clinton! Natasha! Welcome! I did not see you there, hiding away!” he called loudly, gesturing them over to where he stood with Rhodey and Tony.  
“Awww, come on man,” Clint grumbled, taking Nat’s hand and tugging her with him as he walked over. “Clinton is a bad name, call me Clint.”  
“Hi Thor,” Natasha said cordially, holding her hand up in a half-wave. “And I prefer Nat.”  
“Nat and Clint? Somehow calling you by nicknames takes away the magic,” Rhodey said, smirking at them.  
“No magic here,” Clint told him. “Just good ol’ fashioned fear.”  
“It’s a great motivator,” Natasha agreed. “Can get anything you want if you make people fear you.”  
“I prefer love and adoration,” Tony said flippantly. “That seems to work just as well.”  
“The money helps too though, right?” Clint asked. “Being a billionaire must be so good for getting people to do what you want.”  
“Well, I’m not as cute as Bruce, or as tall and beefy as Thor and the other two. Gotta work with what I’m given.”  
Rhodey looked affronted and opened him mouth to speak, but was cut off by Bucky appearing, throwing his arm over Tony’s shoulders.  
“Awww, poor Stark,” he cooed. “Mus’ be hard, bein’ you.”  
“It is when there are people like you hanging around,” Tony said fondly, then rolled his eyes at the others. “Wanna see a magic trick, Barnes?”  
“Sure!”  
Tony had suspected Bucky was drunk, and the pure enthusiasm in his voice cemented the fact.  
“I’m gonna say five words, the magic words. Then I’m going to count to three. By the time I get to three, you’ll have disappeared.”  
Bucky laughed, loudly, directly in his ear.  
“Sure thing, Stark. Sure fuckin’ thing.”  
Tony grinned at Thor.  
“Steve, come get your boy!” he yelled, then counted off on his fingers.  
As he held up a third finger, Bucky was pulled off him.  
“Jesus, Buck, can’t leave you alone for a second,” Steve said, unwrapping Bucky’s arm from Tony’s shoulders.  
“Told you so,” Tony said triumphantly, turning to stick his tongue out at Bucky.  
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, you pain,” Bucky managed, resting his weight on Steve’s shoulders instead.  
“Need a hand?” Clint offered, stepping forward.  
Steve smiled gratefully and nodded.  
Clint grabbed one of Bucky’s arms, and together they half-carried, half-dragged him to the couch.  
Tony shrugged, then turned back to the group, eyes focusing in on Natasha.  
“So, sorry, probably impolite, gotta ask,” Tony started, words blurring together. “Dating? You, him, together?”  
She said nothing, barely moved except for raising a single eyebrow.  
“Fair cop,” Rhodey said quickly. “And really not important.”  
Natasha laughed then, throwing her head back.  
“Did we miss something here?” Rhodey asked Tony and Thor, both of whom looked baffled.  
“I don’t think so,” Tony said cautiously.  
“Sorry,” Natasha said, once she’d calmed down a little. “You’re just all so suspicious.”  
“Clint _is_ the Prank Master 3000,” Tony pouted. “And you’re rumoured to be able to kill a man with just your thighs. I think we’re allowed to be wary.”  
“Clint’s genius is overstated. My thighs are not,” she told them, snickering.  
Thor started laughing too, then held up his drink.  
“To new friends,” he toasted, downing his cup in one go.  
They all held their drinks up, repeating his toast, then drank.  
“What’s happening?” Clint asked, beaming at them all as he stood back next to Natasha.  
“They think we’re mysterious,” she told him with a smirk.  
“Oh, that’s fantastic,” he said. “I love it when people think I’m cooler than I am.”  
Tony snorted, a smile creeping onto his face.  
“Okay, you both can stay,” he told them. “Welcome to the Avengers.”  
“What the fuck is the Avengers?” they asked in tandem, faces pulled into identical expressions of mocking surprise.

-*-

“You know, it’s actually really hard to explain the Avengers without looking like an idiot or a nerd,” Tony said off-handedly.  
“I wonder why.”  
“It’s an elite club of super powerful and cool people, drinking and having fun. But because of Steve’s stupid name it sounds dumb.”  
“I’m sure it’s the name that make it sounds dumb, rather than the whole ‘adults pretending to be superheroes in group chat’ thing.”  
“Stephen, I’m so sorry to break this to you,” Tony said seriously, putting his hand on his shoulder and looking directly into his eyes. “But none of us are adults."  
“You’re over 18,” Stephen said, rolling his eyes.  
“We are adults in age only.”  
“Fine, whatever. So, the Avengers are dumb, and Nat and Clint have joined the party. What next?”

-*-

Tony was decidedly drunk.  
He was also decidedly happy.  
Lewis, Jane, Natasha (call me Nat, she’d said; not fucking likely, he’d responded), and Clint were all now officially his friends on social media.  
He knew the other few people who were at the party, at least by name, which left only one person he hadn’t yet spoken to.  
His ego was probably dangerously big at this point, but hey, when wasn’t it?

“So, what’s the infamously tough cheer captain doing at a frat boy’s party?” Tony drawled, moving to stand next to Pepper.  
She’d been standing in the corner, briefly chatting with those who wandered into her orbit but not talking for long.  
“Regretting the circumstances that lead to Tony Stark using such a terrible pick up line,” she deadpanned, but the corner of her lips lifted slightly.  
He took that as a good sign.  
“Regret is a bad thing, Potts. You should stop it.”  
“What? Regretting?”  
“Yep. Live in the moment, live now.”  
He thought he sounded worldly, like his advice was life changing, but he tilted dangerously as he spoke.  
“What do you want?” she asked plainly.  
“You looked lonely. And a lady should never be lonely at a party.”  
Pepper rolled her eyes, but her smile grew.  
“You’re too charming for your own good,” she told him.  
“My ma used to say that,” he said, holding his hand over his heart. “Then I started talking and she changed her tune quick smart.”  
He grinned at her and she laughed softly.  
“I have made four new friends tonight. I was hoping to add another to the roster.”  
“And you think that we should be friends?”  
“Why not? You’ve seen the rest of my group, I’m not picky.”  
“You’re so flattering.”  
“I just mean I don’t care about where everyone’s coming from. You seem dangerously smart, and I am a sucker for anyone smart and powerful.”  
“Powerful?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.  
“You’re head cheerleader, you’re about as powerful as it gets. ‘Cept for Captain, obviously.”  
She shook her head at him, laughing again.  
“I’m starting to feel like you’re laughing at me.”  
“I am.”  
“Then you’re gonna fit in just fine,” Tony said warmly. “One people who are mean to me can be my friends.”  
“I’ll keep that in mind.”

They were interrupted by Bruce then, looking apologetic.  
“Sorry to cut in, but I’m heading home,” he told them. “Thought you might want to walk back with me, Pepper?”  
“That’d be lovely, Bruce,” she said, finishing her drink.  
She handed the empty to Tony, who took it without a word.  
“Till next time.”  
“See ya, Tony,” Bruce said with a smile.  
“Catch ya on the flip,” he managed, mock saluting them both.

They left quickly, managing to escape before Thor noticed and demanded they stay longer (which had happened once already to Bruce and at least twice to Rhodey).  
Tony watched them go, then turned just in time to see Clint do a handstand.  
“Lights!” Jane yelled, as Clint’s feet got dangerously close to the bulb.  
“Barton,” Darcy said, tone bored. “Stow it, or do it outside.”  
Clint rolled forward, sitting on the ground and pouting.  
“You never let me have any fun.”  
“Way of the world, bucko,” she said, sounding completely unapologetic. “Go outside if you want to handstand that bad.”  
His face lit up and he turned to Thor.  
“You, me, Nat, handstand race?”  
Thor nodded quickly, and Nat sighed.  
“You both know I’m going to win, right?” she asked.  
“Nope, I’m going to!” Bucky exclaimed, emptying his drink and throwing the cup. “Let’s go!”  
The four of them left, the three boys running down the hall and Nat walking behind, sighing as she went.

Nat won.  
By a lot.

-*-

“There’s more,” Tony said, scrolling further down the chat on his phone. “Look at this.”

-*-

_Iron Man added Clint Barton to the Avengers  
Iron Man added Natasha Romanov to the Avengers_

Natasha: what the fuck is this nonsense?  
Clint: holy fuck yall r NERDS  
Clint: wait steve if i send u pics will u draw me too?????

_Clint Barton set his nickname as “Hawkeye”_

Iron Man: im so glad we added u  
The Winter Soldier: this is so good gang  
The Winter Soldier: clint just ambushed steve with drawings and is making him listen to his ideas  
Iron Man: drunken vindication strikes again  
The Hulk: Jesus Christ, all of you need to go to bed, it’s 5am  
The Winter Soldier: or we could just stay up and go to bed tonight instead  
War Machine: I am going back to my room. Stay safe everyone.  
Iron Man: LAME  
The Winter Soldier: THE LAMEST

_Natasha Romanov set her nickname as “Black Widow”_

The Winter Soldier: eyes emoji  
Black Widow: :) :) :)  
Iron Man: oh no we might have made a mistake here

God of Thunder: Jane is sick, I’m going to help get her and Darcy home.  
Iron Man: tell darcy that shes my hero and i love her  
God of Thunder: She says you’re not her type, but she appreciates the kind words.  
Iron Man: tell darcy shes not my type either but i love her anyway  
God of Thunder: She is sending you kisses. But, and she would like me to really heavily state this, they are for your forehead only.  
Iron Man: god i think i made 5 whole new friends tonight  
Iron Man: im so fucking good at this  
War Machine: Go the FUCK to sleep! TONY!  
Iron Man: im gonna but not cause u told me 2  
Iron Man: floor comfy  
Iron Man: im sleep

-*-

“And thus, the Avengers as you now know them were born.”  
“That’s still a stupid name.”  
“I’m aware, but it stuck.”

-*-

Having Clint on side quickly became the best idea any of them had ever had.  
He was a real ride or die friend, in Bucky’s words.

He busted Tony out of boring lectures, always was up for midnight convenience store trips, and was happy to drive them all around in his van.  
His old, beat up, bright purple van.

“This is horrific,” Steve said when they all climbed in the back. “Your van is so dirty.”  
“Be nice, she’s old.”  
“When was the last time you cleaned _her_?”  
“Her name is Katherine. And never.”  
“How long have you had Katherine?”  
Clint grinned, and refused to answer.  
Steve climbed over the seats to sit in the front, pushing Nat to the side and buckling his seat belt resolutely.

The rest of them piled into the back, sitting on the floor and trying not to get crushed by the drum set that he inexplicably had in the back.

Clint drove how he lived: fast, wildly, and without any care for the rules.

Tony took to clinging to Rhodey, who was half sat in Bucky’s lap.  
Nat screamed along to the song playing over the radio and Thor mimed playing drums along with the beat, head bopping as he slid across the floor.  
“We’re _heeeeere_ ,” Clint sang as he pulled up to the pizza place, braking hard.  
“You fistful of assholes,” Darcy screeched, as a cymbal fell on her head.

They all climbed out of the van quickly, staggering and clutching their stomachs.  
“I’m never doing that again,” Tony whispered to Rhodey, who nodded aggressively.

Pizza night had quickly become a tradition in the group, and they piled into their favourite booth, ordering without looking at the menu.

“So, who here thinks we should never have Clint drive us all somewhere again?” Bucky asked loudly as they waited on food.  
Everyone nodded, except Nat, who frowned at them.  
“I had fun,” she said petulantly.  
“That’s because you’re used to the insanity,” Tony told her.  
Clint pouted comically, brightening only when the pizza arrived.

When they were done eating and getting ready to leave, Clint grinned at them all.  
“You know,” he started, eyes glinting like they did right before one of his pranks went off. “You still all have to get home somehow. And it looks like I’m the only one with a way.”  
“Absolutely not,” Tony said.  
He grabbed his phone and made a call.  
“Happy will be here to pick me and Rhodey up in five minutes,” he told Clint, sticking his tongue out.  
Rhodey cheered and Steve groaned.  
“There are two free seats,” Tony announced. “Fight over them.”

Steve, Bruce, Bucky, and Thor all looked at each other, eyes flicking back and forth.  
Then at once, they all turned and ran, pushing each other to be out the door and at the curb first.

“Stark, you’re a fucking animal,” Clint said, laughing.  
“Takes one to know one, Clinton.”

-*-

“Is this where you tell me that you started crushing on Clint instead?” Stephen asked dryly.  
“What?” Tony exclaimed, eyes wide. “No, why?”  
“The last time you gave me a speech about how much you love your friends, it was Bruce.”  
“Oh. Oh! No, I just want you to understand how willing I am to die for him. Especially because he’s kind of the star of the next section of the year.”  
“The star? How gracious of you to share the spotlight,” Stephen said diplomatically, sipping his beer.  
“It is, very gracious. But honestly, after what he went through, he deserves to be the star, at least for this bit.”

-*-

Things had been quiet, too quiet.  
Memorial day weekend was spent drunk, drunker, then Monday sleeping off the hangover.  
They all decided to meet at Steve and Bucky’s for the standard McDonalds and Netflix post-binge misery session.

“Heads up ya’ll,” Nat announced to the group as she strode in, kicking the door shut and pulling off her sunglasses. “Clint will not be making it this evening as he is wrapped up in shenanigans.”  
“Shenanigans, you say?” Tony asked, sitting upright and making grabby hands at her.  
She threw him the bottle of Powerade she’d brought for him and nodded.  
“He didn’t say what, just that it was going to be, and I quote, ‘totally worth missing Arrow for’.”  
She used her fingers to air quote as she spoke, voice dropping to imitate Clint.  
“His loss,” Bucky said, hitting play on the remote.

They watched half a season, everyone spread along the two couches and floor.  
Nat sat behind Thor, braiding his hair, and Tony lay with his head in Bucky’s lap.  
Bruce fell asleep at one point, jumping violently when there was an explosion on screen and falling off the couch onto Steve.  
Steve patted his head kindly, then pushed him off.

Eventually, as they were all starting to think about bed, Nat’s phone on the coffee table lit up with an incoming call.  
The ensuing tussle lead to Nat biting Steve and Bucky elbowing Tony in the stomach, but Thor managed to snatch the phone up.  
“You have reached the fair Lady Romanov’s phone. Unfortunately she can not answer, but I, her loyal knight, can take a message.”  
He paused, nodding as he listened.  
Then he hit the loudspeaker button.  
“Nat? You there?” Clint’s voice echoed through the room.  
“What’s up, Hawkeye?” she asked, punching Steve in the thigh and sitting back.  
“I uhhh… I kinda fucked up a bit here,” he said, voice wavering.  
“Need me to come get you?”  
She was all business suddenly, sitting up straight and staring at her phone intently.  
“Kind of. Not really. Actually, who else is there?”  
“Everyone. It’s hangover hero day, the whole crew is here.”  
“Oh. Okay. Cool… I kind of need everyone’s help.”  
“What did you do?” Bucky asked, smirking.  
“Well… Okay it’s like… I can’t even explain really. Can you all just come here?”  
“Where are you?” Steve asked.  
“Main hall.”  
“On campus?”  
“Yeah.”  
“What the fuck did you do, Clint?” Nat asked sharply.  
“I totally deserve this, and I’ll explain when you get here, but can just… everyone who doesn’t mind a criminal record, can you come to me.”  
He hung up and Rhodey groaned.  
“Does this mean that we’re going to the main hall?” he asked Tony.  
“Sounds like, sourpatch.”

They all looked around at each other, then Steve nodded and stood.  
“Okay, I’m going. Bucky?”  
“Obviously, Steve.”  
“Tony? Rhodey?”  
Tony nodded and Rhodey sighed, standing.  
“Nat?”  
“You don’t even have to ask,” she said, eyes narrowed as she took her phone from Thor.  
“I would not miss it,” Thor added. “Friends in need.”  
“Are friends indeed,” Bucky muttered darkly.  
“Bruce?” Steve asked, turning.  
Bruce was asleep again, glasses half falling off his face.  
“I vote we leave Bruce here, he’s the least likely to want to be involved. Also he doesn’t sleep enough,” Tony said, and the rest agreed.

Together, they all headed out to find Clint.

He was pacing around the main square when they found him, head in his hands as he muttered to himself.  
“Clint!” Nat hissed and he jumped, whirling around.  
His face was somewhere between horrified and hopeful, and he visibly deflated when he saw them all.  
“God, I wasn’t expecting it to be all of you.”  
“Trust me, I’m not here because I want to be,” Rhodey said, ignoring Tony’s elbow jamming into his ribs.  
“I’m so sorry, but I just… I fucked up.”  
“Yeah, we got that,” Nat said.  
She put her hands on her hips and glared at him.  
“Explain. Now.”

-*-

“You know Loki?” Tony asked, opening another beer.  
“British, dark hair, bit of an arrogant cock?”  
“You know, I’ve heard you described the exact same way.”  
“I’m not British,” Stephen said with a sniff.  
“But you look like you should be.”  
“Fuck off, Stark.”  
“Wow, back to last names. I must have hit a sore spot.”  
“Yes, okay, yes I know Loki,” Stephen said, rolling his eyes for the umpteenth time.  
“Well, you’re right. Loki is an arrogant cock. He’s also way too smart for his own good.”  
“What does that have to do with anything?”  
“He wanted to pull a prank. A big one. And he knew Clint is a sucker for pranks and a very valuable asset to have for things like that.”  
“A prank?” Stephen asked, frowning.  
Slowly, realisation began to creep along his face.  
“The cows,” he whispered, his hand flying to cover his mouth.  
“Yeah. The cows.”

-*-

It took a while to get the whole story out of Clint, and when he was done they all looked at him, dumb struck.  
“You…” Steve started.  
“Smuggled cows on campus? Yes.”  
“With…”  
“With Loki, yes.”  
“Because…”  
“Because he told me it would be an absolutely hilarious prank, yes.”  
Thor sighed heavily, shaking his head.  
“What the fuck, dude?” Tony asked, unable to keep the awe out of his voice.  
“Look, he asked me for help with an epic prank. I said fuck yeah, because I’m the Prank Master 3000 and I _live_ for shit like this. Then he said he needed cows, and that’s why he asked me.”  
“Why would you be able to help with cows?”  
“Because I grew up on a farm.”  
Steve threw his hands up in the air at that, whisper-yelling “what the fuck”.  
“Okay, so there’s a lot about me I haven’t told you,” Clint admitted. “But the point is, I grew up on a dairy farm. So I’m good with cows. And we had to keep this super quiet. You know, the less people who knew, the better. So I’m an asset, with being good at pranks, having a good brain for causing mayhem, and can rustle cows like the cowboys of yore. John Wayne who?”  
Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, gesturing at Nat to handle it.  
She stepped forward and grabbed Clint’s ear, twisting it.  
“Clinton Francis Barton,” she hissed. “You brought a cow onto campus?”  
He whined, and she twisted his ear further.  
“Okay, okay, uncle. Uncle!” he cried, pushing her off. “It wasn’t one.”  
“Two? Three?”  
“More like sixteen.”  
Bucky sat on the grass, putting his head between his knees and trying not to hyperventilate.  
“Wait, why did you need us?” Steve asked sharply, eyes narrowed at Clint. “It sounds like the perfect crime.”  
“It is.”  
“Then why were you almost in tears when you called Nat?”  
“I wasn’t! Lies and slander!”  
“Clint,” Nat warned, voice low and threatening.  
“Okay, I was. I may have shed a few while waiting for you too. So the thing is, we got them all in here fine, right? No problems. Well, very few problems. Loki has connections apparently. But he also apparently has a camera. So… basically we need to get rid of them and cover any damage so that his photos aren’t in any way incriminating. Can’t catch me for a crime they can’t prove even happened.”

They were all silent for three full minutes (a record, probably, at least as far as Tony could tell).  
Eventually Bucky calmed down enough to stand up.  
“I’m out. I’m not… I can’t. I fuckin’ hate cows at the best of times. I’ll run distraction or something. But I ain’t… I ain’t getting involved with cows.”  
“What the fuck are we gonna do? This is fucked,” Tony said, face in his hands.  
“I have a plan, probably,” Clint said, making a 50/50 motion with his hand.  
“I don’t believe you do. And if you did, it wouldn’t be any fucking good,” Nat snapped.  
“I actually have an idea,” Steve said, running his hand through his hair. “It’s not brilliant, but it’ll do in a pinch.”  
“And boy are we in a pinch,” Tony told him. “A pickle even. Yeah, I’m upgrading this from a pinch to a pickle.”  
“A pickle, indeed,” Thor agreed, playing with one of his plaits and looking thoughtful. “I must go.”  
“What?” Clint asked, throwing his hands up. “I need you here! You’re part of the beef. The muscle. The very necessary cog in the machine of fixing my life.”  
“I have to find Loki.”  
“What? Why?” Clint cried. “Who cares about that little shit? There’s so much more happening right now for us to deal with.”  
“I have to see him. He needs to know you are under my protection. I can also maybe get the photo deleted.”  
“Wait, how do you know Loki?” Tony asked.  
“He’s my brother."

There was a stunned silence, then:  
“What the _fuck_? Why didn’t you warn me? You knew I was hanging out with him and you still let him _Loki me_!” Clint shrieked.  
“Loki you?” Steve asked.  
“It’s what they call it when Loki fucks with you,” Tony told him, and Clint sighed heavily.  
“I shoulda sent this coming,” he lamented, shaking his head. “It’s called being Loki’d for a reason. But I just blundered in, and now here I am, the latest Loki victim.”  
Thor shook his head tiredly, then bid his goodbyes.

“So, that was a fun fact,” Tony said. “We are just learning so much about each other tonight.”  
“Shut up,” Clint snapped. “We need to sort this out.”  
“Ah yes, this pickle we have found ourselves in.”  
“Look, my baby sister can get a truck to move them, we just have to get them out of here. Without security seeing.”  
“You have a sister? Seriously? What else have you been hiding from us?” Tony asked, feigning hurt. “I bet you don’t even go here, you just hang out for fun."  
“Fuck off. Anyway, my sister. She’s the light of my life, an absolute demon, and ready to commit crime. She’s said she’s ready to go when we are. But she’s only playing getaway driver, nothing else.”  
“Right…” Bucky managed. “So I’ll keep security out of the way, you lot can handle the cows.”  
“How are you gonna do that, Buck?” Steve asked, frowning.  
“I have no idea, but I’ll think of something.”  
“I love you, man,” Rhodey said to Clint, reaching out to put his hand on his shoulder. “But there’s no fucking way I’m dealing with cows. I’ll help the Buckster keep security away from here.”  
“Fair,” Clint said with a heavy sigh. “Right, let’s go team. Let’s get these fucking cows out of here.”  
Steve opened his mouth to say something but Tony punched his arm.  
“Do not, do _not_ say Avengers assemble right now,” he said sharply.  
Steve visibly wilted, then nodded.  
“Alright then, time to hustle, team,” Tony told the group.  
“I think you mean… rustle,” Clint said with a grin, slapping Nat’s hand away as she grabbed for his ear again.

-*-

“You know, I know how this story ends,” Stephen said off-handedly. “I remember everyone talking about it. And the newspaper articles. Didn’t you guys trend on Buzzfeed?”  
“Yep,” Tony said, sitting up and puffing out his chest proudly. “Were the top story for three whole days.”  
“I really don’t need you to rehash the rest.”  
“You do, because they all got it entirely wrong.”  
“So Barnes didn’t streak through campus?”  
Tony shrugged, running his hand through his hair.  
“And Rhodes didn’t lock himself in the security room?”  
“Those are true, but the rest is different. And it’s not about the story we told everyone, it’s about the journey.”  
“Wise words,” Stephen said sarcastically.

-*-

“What is with these cows, Clint?” Steve asked, breathing hard after a solid 20 minutes of trying to move the herd.  
“What do you mean?”  
“They’re big, they’re mean, and they don’t listen. They’re not normal cows.”  
“How do you know what cows are like?”  
“Used to stay with family friends on a farm every so often when I was younger.”  
“Is that how you got buff?” Tony asked, checking his phone.  
“What?”  
“Didn’t you used to be skinny?”  
“How do you know that?”  
“Bucky.”  
“Of course. Yes, that’s part of it. Wood chopping builds muscle,” he said, shrugging. “Anyway, Clint. Cows?”  
“They’re a special breed,” Clint said with a grin. “Loki got them specifically for the damage they cause.”  
“Jesus christ.”  
“They’re called Chitauri and they’re the meanest fuckers I’ve ever met,” he said, voice almost awed. “You just gotta know how to get ‘em to listen. And if you gotta kill ‘em, go for the stomach.”  
“Why the fuck would we need to know that?” Nat snapped.  
“In case they start running at you.”  
“You’re fucking stupid, Barton,” Steve said with a growl, staring one of the bigger ones down. “We need a new strategy.”  
“Tag team?” Tony suggested.  
“Tag team,” Clint agreed.

It took another hour to get them rounded up and out of the building.  
When they were finally able to get them moving, Steve shot a quick text to Bucky requesting a diversion, and then they headed out onto the campus towards the street.

-*-

“Clint’s sister is aces,” Tony said with a fond smile. “She’s tiny and an absolute maniac. I made a joke about Clint not being fit to be Hawkeye and she said she’d happily take up the mantle.”  
“Does she go here?”  
“Nah, Kate’s a few years younger. Plus I don’t think schooling is her style. It’d probably cut too much into the time she spends being a badass who can hot-wire trucks.”  
“So you got the cows out?” Stephen prompted after a pause.  
“So we got them out and onto the truck, after two hours and a lot of crying. Then we had to go clean up the mess, which took another half hour. Nat was ready to murder Clint by the time we were done.”  
“I would have actually murdered him if he were my friend.”  
“I’m surprised none of us did, to be honest.”

-*-

They met Bucky at the service station near campus, all of them miserable and sweaty except for Rhodey (decidedly calm) and Bucky (grinning wildly).  
“What the fuck happened to you lot?” Bucky asked, laughing when he saw them all, covered in dirt and god knows what else.  
“Cows happened,” Steve bit out. “Which you would know, if you stuck around to help.”  
“Sorry, I was too busy keeping security off your asses.”  
“What did you do?”  
“I streaked,” he said proudly.  
“It was a sight,” Rhodey added. “His pale ass shone in the dark. He almost made it the whole way to the labs before security tried to stop him.”  
“And what did you do, honeybear, while we were up to our elbows in Chitauri shit?” Tony asked sweetly.  
Bucky slung his arm around Rhodey’s shoulders and grinned.  
“He completed a hostile takeover of the security room.”

Steve turned on his heel and walked inside, getting a candy bar and some soda, shaking his head as he went.  
When he returned, Bucky explained.  
Rhodey had snuck into the main security room while Bucky acted as a diversion, scrubbing the security footage from the night and messing with the radios.  
Tony had never been prouder.

They were all sat on the curb, passing around the bottle of Coke and lamenting the state of their lives, when their phones chimed.

_The Hulk messaged “The Avengers”_

The Hulk: Okay.  
The Hulk: I’m totally not freaking out.  
The Hulk: But you were all here watching TV when I fell asleep.  
The Hulk: And now I’m alone in Cap’s apartment at 4am.  
The Hulk: And I don’t want to say it was aliens.  
The Hulk: But I’m worried it was aliens.  
Captain America: No stress, Bruce, we’re just doing a midnight food run with Clint.  
The Hulk: But it’s 4am, you’re usually waking up around this time, not still up.  
The Hulk: Jesus, it was aliens, wasn’t it.  
The Winter Soldier: do u want food or not?  
The Hulk: Yes please.  
The Winter Soldier: then shut up and sit tight  
The Hulk: Oh thank god, that’s the real Bucky.

-*-

“Did you tell Bruce?”  
“What? About the prank?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Yeah, eventually. We weren’t going to, didn’t want to worry him. But then we all skipped class and everyone was talking about something crazy going on, so he cornered Steve.”  
“Rogers told?”  
“Steve’s not a narc, but he will fold like a cheap suit if his friend accuses him of lying.”

-*-

Bucky’s streak became legend.  
No one was sure how as they swore a vow of silence about the whole night, but Tony and Steve privately agreed that Bucky probably told everyone himself, even if he vehemently denied it.

The upside was, no one at the college could prove it.

The photos of Clint came back to bite them in the ass later though.  
One fateful Tuesday, in fact, as Tony was scarfing down a BLT at his desk while he tinkered with his bot.

_Hawkeye messaged “The Avengers”_

Hawkeye: the dean just called me to his office  
Hawkeye: this is it gang this is the end  
Hawkeye: all i ask is that at least one of you cries at my funeral  
The Winter Soldier: i’ll sob like a bereaved widow  
War Machine: i’ll stand in the background, with an umbrella, watching the funeral from afar, misty eyed and mysterious  
Iron Man: i will throw myself into ur grave n demand 2 b buried w/u  
God of Thunder: I will write a eulogy that will make grown men weep.  
The Hulk: I will be there, and that’s as much as I can offer you at this time.  
Captain America: I’ll salute you as they lower the coffin, a single tear rolling down my cheek.  
Black Widow: i’ll help you fake your death  
Hawkeye: i thank u all for ur love &solidarity at this time

Tony was waiting when Clint got to the main offices, leaning against the wall and playing a bubble popping game on his phone.

“What are you doing here?” Clint asked, frowning.  
“I’m here for you. I’m your lawyer today. Don’t say anything, don’t do anything, let me handle it all.”  
“That’s… wow, that’s actually really scary.”  
“What?”  
“The idea of you as a lawyer.”  
Clint shuddered dramatically and Tony flicked his nose.  
“Stow the attitude Barton, I’m all that stands between you and certain expulsion. Just play dumb, deny everything, and let me handle it.”

The dean had requested they be there at 3:30 on the dot.  
At 3:52, he called them into his office.  
“It’s a power play,” Tony muttered. “Don’t show him you’re rattled.”  
“But I am rattled!”  
“Too bad, pretend you’re not.”

The dean was definitely not what Tony expected.  
When he thought of a college dean, it conjured an image of a weedy man with a beard and glasses, and elbow patches on a tweed jacket.  
The dean of ESU was buff.  
He stood so tall his head brushed the doorframe, and his shaved head and muscles made him look more like a biker than university official.

Okay, Tony was rattled too, but he couldn’t let Clint see that he was bothered by it.  
Game face: _on_.

Before the dean even had a chance to speak, Tony had strolled into the room, throwing himself down on one of the seats.  
“Whatever you’re about to say, I guarantee it’ll be wrong,” he told the dean, yawning.  
“You haven’t heard what I have to say,” the dean said, voice deep and oddly melodic. “Also, I don’t think you were invited to this conversation.”  
“I’m here for Clint. I’m his emotional support friend.”  
“Is this true, Mr Barton?”  
“Yes, sir,” Clint said with a toothy grin.  
“Very well. I will be honest with you, Mr Barton, I am not pleased about what has lead us to this conversation.”  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir.”  
“I’m sure.”  
The dean levelled them both with a look, before sitting at his desk and leaning forward.  
He steepled his fingers and watched Clint closely.  
“I know about the cows,” was all he said.  
Clint tilted his chin defiantly, clenching his teeth.  
“I’m sure we have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tony said with a shrug.  
The dean slid a photo forward.

The photo was inside the main hall, showing a figure that was unmistakably Clint standing in the middle of a group of cows.  
Clint hissed like a cat, crossing his arms.  
“I still have no idea what this is about,” he said.  
“I have on good authority that you engineered a prank, leading to some sixteen cows ending up in the main hall of the campus,” the dean said, raising an eyebrow at him.  
“What proof do you have?” Tony asked sharply.  
“Aside from the photo?”  
“Yes.”  
“A student testament to the fact.”  
“What fact?”  
The dean appraised Tony, clearly surprised at his behaviour.  
“The fact of a student letting cows into the main hall, with intent to disrupt classes and cause damage to school facilities. The student in question being Clinton Barton.”  
“What student testified?”  
“Loki Laufeyson.”  
“Did he also give you the photo?”  
The dean nodded.

Clint’s anxiety ratcheted up another notch as Tony laughed directly in the dean’s face.

“You trust Loki?” Tony spluttered out between giggles. “Really?”  
The dean didn’t respond, but rather turned to Clint.  
“You will be put on academic suspension pending investigation, resulting in potential expulsion, depending on the outcome.”  
“No, he won’t,” Tony said sharply, sobering quickly.  
“You do not have a say in that.”  
“I do when I have proof otherwise.”  
The dean sighed heavily, then raised his eyebrow at Tony and gestured for him to continue.  
“Loki set up Clint. Well, he was trying to set me up, Clint was just caught in the crossfire.”

Clint felt like his stomach dropped a mile.  
He carefully schooled his features into a neutral expression and waited for Tony’s explanation.

“Look, Loki and I had this idea for a ridiculous prank. I was mostly joking, but when Loki came to me and said he could get cows, I went with it. I can’t say no to a good prank, it’s a personal weakness of mine,” Tony said with a crooked smile. “After he delivered them, I kind of realised I was in over my head. Then it was too late. So I called Clint, my best buddy in the whole world, and got him to help me get the cows out.”  
“You’re at fault?”  
“Yep.”  
The dean narrowed his eyes at him, obviously trying to figure him out.  
“So you came here to relieve your conscience?” he challenged.  
“God no,” Tony told him with a laugh. “I just didn’t want my best friend to get in trouble. If you were pinning this on someone else, I wouldn’t even care.”  
“How… philanthropic of you,” the dean said, voice and smile tight.  
“I am very benevolent,” Tony agreed seriously. “And also definitely to blame. Look, I took photos too. Check this out.”  
He handed his phone to the dean, lit up to reveal his lock screen - a picture of him kissing one of the cows on the cheek.  
“I called her Margarette,” Tony informed him happily. “She was a real lady, very coy.”  
Clint snorted, then flinched.  
“Loki planned it, organised it, and paid for the cows,” Tony said with a shrug. “Clint came to help me clean it up. If anything, he should get a medal for his help. Loki is the one you want. And me, too, I guess. Regardless, Clint is innocent.”  
The dean nodded thoughtfully, tapping a finger against his chin.

Eventually he spoke.  
“Very well, you’re both dismissed.”  
“Sir?” Clint prompted.  
“Mr Barton, you are on thin ice, and I will be keeping an eye on you, but you are no longer under investigation. Mr Stark, I will be following up with Mr Laufeyson, but I thank you for your time and explanation. Due to very little physical evidence, I will not be taking this matter further. You are both free to go.”

Clint was out like a shot, down the hall before either of them could blink.  
“Thank you, Dr Thanos,” Tony said softly.  
The dean just nodded, waving him off.

-*-

“I can’t believe you went up against the dean and only got a slap on the wrist,” Stephen said, shaking his head.  
“When your daddy is a benefactor, there’s nothing they can really do. No one wants to be the guy who expelled an eventual world leader just because of a stupid prank that didn’t even get carried out properly.”  
“Eventual world leader?”  
“I know my path, and it’s one of great success.”

-*-

_Hawkeye messaged “The Avengers”_

Hawkeye: to celebrate my not being expelled  
Hawkeye: drinks at mine?  
The Winter Soldier: no offence but i’d rather die than go to yours  
Hawkeye: WOW  
Hawkeye: OFFENCE TAKEN  
Iron Man: full offence id rather listen to thor explain the intricacies of beowulf than go anywhere near ur stink ass room  
Captain America: How about we host?  
Hawkeye: FINE  
War Machine: Thank god for you, Steve.  
The Hulk: How did you manage to avoid expulsion?  
Hawkeye: tony took the fall  
Hawkeye: heart eyes emoji  
Hawkeye: heart eyes emoji  
Hawkeye: heart eyes emoji  
Captain America: What? Tony, are you okay?  
Hawkeye: he just snorted  
Hawkeye: loudly  
Hawkeye: heart eyes emoji  
Iron Man: im a bad bitch  
Iron Man: they cant kill me  
Captain America: Tony. Seriously.  
Iron Man: yeah im fine. they cant do shit to me. dad owns too much of this place  
Hawkeye: wait seriously?  
Iron Man: theres a stark wing in the science block dude  
Iron Man: bc he paid them big $$$  
Iron Man: thats why rhodey n i r roomies  
Iron Man: he basically paid everyone off  
Iron Man: its like having a mafia dad but less cool  
Black Widow: what the fuck  
The Hulk: Okay, I am officially muting this chat.  
Captain America: Wait, you can do that?  
God of Thunder: How?  
God of Thunder: _@The Hulk_ HOW?

-*-

“There’s a Stark wing?”  
“You literally study in it every day, how do you not know that?”  
“Guess I just avoid any mention of Starks,” Stephen said, face innocent and eyes wide.  
“Well you shouldn’t, Game of Thrones is fucking dope.”  
"Haven't seen it.”  
“What? Seriously?”  
“Don’t watch much TV.”  
“Okay, lock it in, I’m making you watch it. What are you doing tomorrow?”  
“Studying.”  
“Nope, now you’re coming over to watch Game of Thrones with me.”  
Stephen gave him an odd look, but Tony just shrugged.

-*-

War Machine messaged “The Avengers”

War Machine: Okay so, I heard from a friend who heard from another friend who heard from his RA that…  
War Machine: Loki just got called into the dean’s office!  
Iron Man: good.  
Captain America: So what does this mean for us?  
Iron Man: we in the clear my dudes  
Iron Man: also this means its time  
Iron Man: initiate step 2 of the plan  
Hawkeye: oooooh whats stage two called?  
Iron Man: fame. infamy. nd facebook.  
Black Widow: should we be worried?  
Iron Man: only if u dnt like adoring fans nd buzzfeed  
The Winter Soldier: i fucken love buzzfeed  
The Winter Solider: today i found out what kind of flower i am  
Iron Man: wat ru?  
The Winter Soldier: a tulip  
The Winter Soldier: apparently im graceful and ambitious  
Hawkeye: HA YEAH SURE BUDDY  
The Hulk: Wait, rewind. What are you doing _@Iron Man_  
Iron Man: ull see  
Black Widow: eyes emoji  
War Machine: upside down smile emoji

Tony Stark was already a household name by this point.  
Being a boy genius, prodigal son of one of the greatest inventors of all time, devilishly handsome, and incredibly charming, made him a tabloid favourite.  
His many run ins with paparazzi, penchant for underage drinking, and generally stupid decisions meant that there was always something being printed about him.  
In hindsight, this was probably why he connected so hard and fast with the Avengers - they were all genuine, didn’t give a fuck about his money, and he was really really goddamn lonely with only one friend.  
But Tony could dwell on that at another time.

Jarvis alerted him to the article when it dropped, the AI sounding long-suffering as he informed Tony of how many times it had been shared.

_**Tony Stark Rescued A Bunch of Cows And The Photos Are The Cutest Pics You’ve Ever Seen** _

The article featured photos that Tony had covertly taken throughout the night, photos of Clint and the others patting the cows and herding them, as well as a completely falsified version of events.  
Tony had told them, close to tears, about how they’d heard that Loki was smuggling cows into the school.  
They weren’t fast enough to stop it, but they could fix it.  
The group had met up and rescued the cows.  
“We didn’t even stop to think,” Tony admitted to the interviewer. “If we had, maybe we would have thought to let staff know, but we were just so upset that someone would do this to the poor cows that we just had to do something.”

Bucky called him a fuckhead, but it all had the desired effect.  
And really, Bucky couldn’t be that mad - the video of him streaking that Rhodey had managed to save was added to the article, and suddenly Bucky was the centre of attention again.  
He was loving it.

Even Nat had seen the merit in the article eventually.  
“Besides,” he added after she’d calmed down. “When else do you think you’ll ever be featured in a Buzzfeed article?”

-*-

“I remember the article. My mother called me to make sure I wasn’t getting into stupid situations with any of you. Actually warned me away from ever talking to Tony Stark, he seems to like attention and make dumb choices.”  
“Ouch. But probably fair.”  
“Loki got in heaps of trouble though, didn’t he?”  
“Oh yeah.”  
“I didn't realise he was Thor’s brother,” Stephen said after a pause.  
“It's not exactly like they're similar. They didn’t even go to the same schools.”  
“Where did Thor go to school?”  
“Some beach town in New South Wales, I don’t know. Apparently it was a good time though.”  
“New South Wales?”  
“In Australia.”  
“He was sent to bearding school in Australia?”  
Tony laughed, shaking his head.  
“No, that’s where they’re from.”  
“What… But… _What_?"  
“You know, this might be the first time I’ve ever seen you speechless.”  
“But he’s… His name is Thor, for god’s sake!”  
“Yep.”  
“And he looks like an actual Norse god!”  
“Yep.”  
“And… I can’t fucking believe it.”  
“Believe it. They’re from some dinky little beach town. That’s why Thor’s accent is like that.”  
“I thought he was just… I don’t know. I never thought about it. I just assumed it was an Americanised Scandinavian or something, like his parents were from Europe but he grew up here.”  
“Nope. Pure Australian. Loki calls Thor a bogan a lot, which as best as I can tell is some kind of… broke surfer? I don’t know, their slang is weird.”  
“Wait, wait, wait. Wait. Why does Loki have a strong British accent then?”  
“Loki wanted to go to a prestigious school and their parents are loaded, so they sent him to stay with family in England.”  
“There aren’t good enough schools in Australia?”  
“I get the feeling Loki doesn’t get on with their dad. You know how he has a different last name?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Well, Loki’s actually adopted. He rebelled by changing his name to his bio parent’s name. And then caused a lot of trouble. The word on the street is Odin was glad to be rid of him by the time he asked to go.”  
“Odin?”  
“Yeah, that’s their dad. Probably why they’re named Thor and Loki.”  
“Fuck. You know, of everything you’ve told me tonight, the fact that they’re Australian and their dad is called Odin might be the most upsetting part of this whole story.”  
“I agree.”  
Stephen burst into laughter, eyes crinkling as he cackled.  
Tony joined him shortly, and it was a long time before they calmed down.

-*-

Tony didn’t hear from the dean, aside from an email from his assistant.  
It politely requested he not talk with the press regarding school matters, especially ones that have already been dealt with.  
Tony printed it, got it framed, and hung it up over the TV.  
He also framed a copy for Clint, who had hung his above his bed.  
“I pray to it every night,” he told Tony once.  
Tony couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.

There had been an uptick in Clint hangouts in the weeks since the Cow-tastrophe (as Tony had named it).  
He spent more and more time hanging around Tony and Rhodey than ever before, even bringing food to the labs and drawing flowers with markers on Tony’s arms while he studied.

“You coming, Clint?” Tony asked, picking his bag up and pushing his chair in.  
The two of them were sat at one of the tables in the lab, Tony trying to fix an equation he’d made a mess of, while Clint read a book.  
“Where?”  
“Practice. Steve’s doing dinner tonight, so I’m meeting them and Bruce there."  
“Oh right, dinner,” Clint said, unenthusiastically.  
“What’s your beef?”  
“Nat.”  
“Nat?”  
“She’s… not happy with me.”  
“Is that why you’ve been hanging off me this week?”  
Clint shrugged, but packed his stuff away and stood anyway, following Tony out to the field.

The two of them found Nat and Bruce quickly, sitting with them on the bleachers while the team ran drills.  
The cheerleaders were out as well, and Tony stretched out, enjoying the sun and watching them all.  
Clint got his book back out, reading quietly while Nat and Bruce discussed the stats on the Howling Commandos. 

“Why do you know all this?” Tony asked Bruce, watching as Pepper ran cheerleaders through different moves.  
“It’s interesting. It’s all math, like baseball.”  
“Plus he has a fantasy team,” Nat added.  
Bruce turned to her with an expression of betrayal, panicking.  
“Not really, it’s more… Not…”  
“Calm down, Brucie boy,” Tony said lazily. “You’re a total nerd, we know.”  
“It’s just really interesting! I don’t care about the sport, I just like the statistics.”  
“Sounds about right. A field full of gorgeous men running at each other, and you’re getting gooey over equations.”  
“They’re not my type,” Bruce said with a shrug, and Tony filed it away for later.  
_Footballers or men?_

Eventually the team was done and changed, and the four went down to meet them on the field.  
Nat moved to stand as far away from Clint as she could, something that made Bruce and Tony share a look.

“Hey guys,” Steve exclaimed, hair still dripping from the shower.  
They exchanged greetings, Rhodey leaning against Tony and Bucky nodding at Nat.  
She said something to him that Tony didn’t catch and he paused.  
After a moment, Bucky responded, tripping over the sounds as he spoke in what Tony vaguely recognised as Russian.  
Clint shot Nat a look, and she shrugged at him, saying something in Russian.  
“Hey, so, what the fuck?” Tony asked, glancing between the three of them.  
“Nat’s teaching me Russian,” Bucky said cautiously.  
“Figured we might as well do something useful while we hang out,” Nat told them. “God knows I’ve been seeing a lot of them recently.”  
Clint muttered something and Nat spat the word “durak” at him.  
He stuck his tongue out her.

“Okay, so if that’s over with,” Steve said loudly. “We should get going.”  
“Yeah, I’m out,” Clint said.  
“What?”  
“I’m not coming to dinner, sorry. Not hungry. I’ll catch ya’ll later.”  
He turned and walked off, hands in his pockets and head bowed.  
“What the fuck?” Rhodey asked, raising his head off Tony’s shoulder. “What did I miss?”  
“Nat’s shitty at Clint,” Tony said.  
“And Nat’s teaching me Russian,” Bucky added.  
“Which Clint can also speak,” Steve said, sighing. “Oh Natasha, what are you doing?”  
Nat crossed her arms, glaring at them all.  
“Nat, what the fuck?” Tony asked.  
“He’s being an ass,” she said with a sniff. “So I’m not talking to him. He’s just shitty because I called him out, and extra shitty because we learned Russian together.”  
“You know, you guys never answered the question.”  
“What question?”  
“Are you two together?”  
She pressed her lips together, looking dangerously close to crying.  
“Does it _matter_?” she asked sharply.  
Tony raised his hands in surrender then, shaking his head.  
“Why is he being an ass?” Steve asked.  
“He didn’t tell me about the Loki thing then expected me to clean it up for him. Then he got off scot-free.”

They all collectively decided to let the topic drop and head back to Steve and Bucky’s for dinner.  
Before long they were all back to normal, playing board games and eating.

They avoided the topic of Clint from there though.

-*-

“It took them close to another month to sort it out,” Tony said, shaking his head.  
“Really? They’re always inseparable.”  
“Yeah, they are. It was a rough month though. Apparently Clint got me and Bruce in the divorce, and Rhodey by association. Nat got Bucky and Steve. Thor kinda bounced between the two, but he has a soft spot for Nat.”  
“He’s the patron saint, right?”  
“Now you’re getting it,” Tony said with a soft smile.  
“How did they fix it?”  
“Nat called it cognitive recalibration.”  
“What does that mean?”  
“Honestly? I have no idea. I think she punched him.”  
“Punched him?”  
“Yeah, then they were right as rain.”  
“I don’t understand them. I don’t understand any of you.”  
“No one truly understands anyone. The best you can hope is that you understand yourself and can make yourself heard.”  
“You know,” Stephen said thoughtfully. “I may be a bit of a cock, but you're an absolute wanker.”  
“Would you believe you’re not the first person to call me that?”  
“I would.”

-*-

The feeling had been growing for weeks, stress slowly creeping up his back.  
Then it hit.

One minute he’d been sitting at his laptop, the next he was curled up on the floor, hands shaking and blood pumping violently, the sound echoing in his ears.  
He could feel his heart in his throat and his thoughts screamed at him.

It took a while for him to calm down afterwards.

“Jarvis, what the fuck was that?” he asked, sitting back in his chair and rubbing his chest with the heel of his hand.  
“I am not a medical professional and anything I say should not be taken as fact,” the AI responded softly.  
“But?”  
“But my diagnosis would be that you’ve experienced a severe anxiety attack.”  
Tony blinked, then sat back.  
“Well, fuck.”

-*-

Stephen cleared his throat uncomfortably.  
“You don’t need to tell me this,” he said, reaching to put his hand on Tony’s shoulder.  
“I know, but it’s part of the story.”  
Tony shrugged and Stephen let his hand slide off his shoulder, choosing instead to reach for another beer.  
“Besides, I feel like I can trust that you won’t use this against me.”  
“I wouldn’t.”  
“See, I knew that you were a good person, behind all the mean remarks and evil looks.”  
Stephen sniffed, opening his beer and drinking deeply from it.

-*-

The anxiety attack in his room was the first, but it wasn’t the last.

Tony found himself more and more on edge, throwing himself into his work and various projects rather than talking to anyone.  
A classic self-isolation move, his brain told him.  
Shut up, he said back.

He went from Mark VIII to Mark XLII on his bots across the span of a month, anxiety pushing him to make it better.  
He went through different colour schemes and set ups, some built for speed, some for strength.  
All of them scrapped and remade almost the second they were done.

Rhodey noticed, of course Rhodey noticed.  
He cornered Tony one day to ask him about it, and Tony promptly fled with an excuse that he needed to get a book back from Bruce.

It wasn’t exactly an excuse, he did need the book back, but he could have lived without it.  
But when Tony found himself outside of Bruce’s building, he decided that it was worth going in and getting it back.  
Seeing Bruce also might help clear his mind too.

He sighed heavily, and started up the stairs to Bruce’s room.

-*-

“So I go to pick up my textbook, and who do I see but the handsome man sitting before me, asking Bruce about radiation and glaring at me.”  
Stephen frowned at him.  
“I wasn’t glaring at you.”  
“You were making me feel very unwelcome with the daggers coming from your eyes.”  
“I… Yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”  
“Yes, you did. But don’t worry, I get it, Bruce is a catch, well worth your efforts to court.”  
“I wasn’t,” Stephen protested, and Tony laughed.  
“You were. So was I. It’s fine.”  
Stephen hung his head and Tony reached out to pat his hair.  
“Bruce Strange is a terrible name though, it was definitely for the best. Also, that boy is straight as an arrow.”  
Stephen snorted.  
“Anyway, you made a comment at me being selfish,” Tony told him, fingers twisting through Stephen’s curls. “And made me angry enough to do something noble."

-*-

It was… tense.  
Weirdly tense.  
Bruce had mentioned Stephen a fair bit, the pre-med prodigy with the intellect and arrogance to carry him all the way through to his goal of neurosurgery.  
Tony had known they were friends, had been since the beginning of the year.  
He’d just never really considered that his friends hung out with people outside of the Avengers before.  
Even when Nat and Clint were fighting, they still hung out with the group.  
In hindsight, he should’ve realised that Stephen and Bruce were the kind of friends to spend time together, with their perfect GPAs and mutual interest in biology.

Tony didn’t know what he expected when he actually met the man in question, but as he sat before him on Bruce’s couch, it kind of clicked into place.  
His expensive watch, carefully gelled hair, stiff posture.  
It all matched up with the kind of guy Tony avoided, the kind of guy who wore his money as a badge and intellect as a weapon.  
But not in the fun way Tony did.

So yeah, maybe it sounds shallow and hypocritical, but Stephen Strange was the exact kind of guy Tony would go out of his way to avoid.  
And with good reason, apparently. 

“What are you doing here?” Stephen asked.  
He eyed Tony carefully as he shuffled his feet.  
“I need my textbook back,” Tony said to Bruce with a small smile. “I got called out in class yesterday, looked like a right idiot.”  
“Oh, sure!” Bruce said brightly, moving to check his bookshelf. “We still on for tomorrow?”  
“Yeah, I need to sit down and get some coding done, I’ve been neglecting my baby for far too long. You still need help with the worksheet?”  
“Yeah, it’s bogging me down a little. But mostly I think Steve needs the help. He’s a good dude, but he’s not exactly…”  
“Academic?” Tony guessed, and Bruce nodded with a grimace.  
“Tony tutors me, kind of,” Bruce explained to Stephen. “Mostly he just tells me where I could neaten up my equations. He could probably answer some of your questions better than me.”  
“What does that cost you?”  
“Nothing except a smile,” Tony told him tersely. “Don’t think you’d be able to afford it though, judging by the look of you.”  
“Didn’t know you did anything for anyone else, Stark,” Stephen snapped, raising an eyebrow.  
“Wow, nice manners there, Strange. You’re going to make a great doctor one day, with a bedside manner like that.”  
“Better doctor than you, the guy famous for his dad and taking pictures with cows.”  
“I’ll have you know my fame is built on a very specific mix of money, bad decisions, genius, and charm.”  
Stephen snorted, rolling his eyes.  
“Charm? I’ll believe it when I see it.”  
“You would if you ever deserved it. Not all are worthy of my charm.”  
“That’s it, isn’t it? It’s all about worth. What someone can do for you. Have you ever done anything for the sake of someone else?”  
Tony opened his mouth to respond, but was stopped by Bruce’s hand on his arm.  
“Tony,” he warned, holding out his textbook.  
“Thanks,” Tony said sharply, turning and walking out without another word.

As he walked down the stairs, he wondered at it.  
Stephen was outright hostile and Tony couldn’t think of a good reason for it.  
He’d never done anything to him directly (that he knew of) and he was sure Bruce couldn’t be saying anything that bad that Stephen…  
Oh.  
OH.  
Stephen Strange had the hots for Bruce Banner.  
Fucking no wonder, then.

Tony tried to avoid thinking about it any further, but something about what Stephen had said niggled at him.  
_Had_ he ever done something for the sake of someone else?  
Objectively, he had to have.  
He helped Clint and took the fall - but then again, he reminded himself, he knew he wouldn’t get into trouble for that and got some sweet press coverage for his trouble.

Really, thinking back on it, Tony was sure almost everything he’d done had some personal gain in it.

He signed up to be a Big Brother that afternoon, and within a week was looking after a kid named Harley.

-*-

Stephen looked up, eyes wide.  
“You joined the Big Brother program because of a stupid comment I made?”  
“Never thought you’d describe anything you did as stupid.”  
“It was though, it was a stupid thing to say.”  
“What changed your mind?”  
“You came out here because you thought I was sad, then told me stories while playing with my hair,” Stephen said tentatively.  
“Well, the hair playing is new,” Tony drawled. “It’s nice when it’s out, by the way.”  
“It’s always out,” Stephen told him.  
“No, I mean when it’s not all slicked back. I like the curls.”  
“The curls? Really?”  
“You’ve seen Brucey boy’s hair. I’m a sucker for a guy with curly hair.”  
Stephen snorted, rolling his eyes.  
“Sorry,” Tony said softly, dropping his hand from Stephen’s hair. “Shoulda asked.”  
“No, it’s okay,” Stephen said with a shrug. “So you joined the program?”  
Tony smiled at him gratefully, then continued.

-*-

Now, it could be argued that being a Big Brother was also for his own benefit, assuaging some of the guilt he’d spent a lifetime accruing.  
But it could also be argued that the means were justified by the ends.  
Regardless, Tony promised himself that he’d be the best goddamn Big Brother the program had ever seen.

Harley helped.  
A lot.

He was smart, blunt, and no nonsense, but still had a spark about him - an enthusiasm for the world around him.  
The exact kinda kid Tony could relate to.  
"Dad went to 7-Eleven to get scratchers. I guess he won because that was six years ago,” he’d said when they first met, and Tony knew instantly that they were a good match.  
“My dad is an asshole,” he told the kid. “Wish he’d left.”  
Harley grinned at him, a big goofy smile, and from there they’d been inseparable.

His enthusiasm for engineering was also something Tony loved.  
The kid’s face when he saw the incomplete Mark XLII fighting bot lead to Tony donating money to the robotics lab at Harley’s school and giving him things to take home to work on.  
“I’m obviously not telling you to start bot fighting,” he said with a stern expression. “It is definitely something you should not do until you are at least 18.”  
“Of course,” Harley responded, nodding solemnly.  
“But in the meantime, see what you can do. Make Boston Dynamics fear your power.”  
“They’re doing great work, but I can do better.”  
“That’s the spirit, kid.”

Eventually Tony spoke to Rhodey about it, about the panic attacks and anxiety, the thoughts that kept him up at night.  
Rhodey ordered a pizza, put his arm around Tony’s shoulders, and turned on a cartoon.  
They sat like that for the entire night and Tony had never been more grateful.

So Stephen Strange had a low opinion of Tony.  
Who cares?  
Proving him wrong had lead to Harley and to talking with Rhodey.  
Of all the times Tony had set out to spite someone, this one probably had the best outcome.

-*-

“So things settled down?”  
“For all of about two minutes. Things were working out, I was back on top of the world, and then Thor messaged.”

-*-

_God of Thunder messaged “The Avengers”_

God of Thunder: I have to go home.  
God of Thunder: I will explain all upon my return.  
God of Thunder: I just did not want you to wonder at my absence.  
Black Widow: you all good chief?  
God of Thunder: No.  
God of Thunder: But I will be.  
God of Thunder: Jane is joining me.  
Black Widow: thats good at least  
God of Thunder: Darcy has said that she will spend time with you all in my place. Apparently I speak fondly of you and she thinks you are all interesting people from what little she has seen.  
God of Thunder: I think she will miss Jane, so your friendship would be appreciated.  
The Winter Soldier: u want us to take lewis under our collective wing?  
Iron Man: hell yeah we can do that  
Iron Man: darce is a fkn treasure  
The Hulk: If you need us Thor, just message. We’re all here for you.  
Iron Man: verily  
The Winter Soldier: verily  
Captain America: Verily.  
Black Widow: verily  
Hawkeye: also im ready to drop a fucker if u need  
Hawkeye: srsly just call  
Hawkeye: id kill a man for you  
Iron Man verily  
The Winter Soldier: veri fucking ly  
God of Thunder: Thank you all.

He flew out the next morning, and by lunch time Darcy had found them.  
She hung out with them almost daily for the two weeks Thor was gone, keeping them updated on Thor and Jane’s struggles, making pancakes, and breaking into song just often enough for it to be charming.

She was almost fun enough to distract them from what was happening with Thor.  
Almost.

-*-

“Thor’s mom,” Tony said softly. “She was really sick, then she died when he was over there.”  
“Oh. That’s awful,” Stephen said, sincerity obvious in his tone. 

-*-

When Thor returned, he was heart broken, exhausted, and wanting to be alone.  
They waited the Steve ordered 7 days, then descended on him with food, cuddles, alcohol, and bad movies.

It took a bit of coaxing but eventually, one movie night, Thor told them.  
“Mother's passing was… a surprise. She was glad to meet Jane though, before it happened. And Loki came too, which I know she appreciated.”  
He was sat on the floor, Nat behind him on the couch brushing his hair and Clint's head in his lap.  
Tony sat next to him, their fingers laced as they held hands.  
Steve, Bucky, and Bruce were spread across the remaining seats, Rhodey sitting on the floor with his shoulder pressed against Tony’s.

Thor stared at the TV as he spoke, eyes tracing over the still of a paused movie.  
“She was not well, then suddenly she was bedridden. I am glad we got there when we did. She was so happy to see me but she apologised for making me miss school.”  
He laughed hollowly, and Tony squeezed his hand.  
“She didn’t go to uni, she married my father and had children instead. She always told us we should do what we were passionate about, and she was so happy we both decided to go to university. Even if it was halfway across the world. She made us compromise and go to the same place. That way we knew someone in the city, no matter what.”  
Clint moved then, pushing his face up against Thor’s stomach and wrapping his arms around his waist.  
Thor patted his head softly.

"You know,” Steve said eventually. “You don’t have to tell us anything. But anything you wish to say, we would be happy to listen to.”

“I feel awful for saying so, but that was not the worst part. The worst part was the family.”  
Thor sighed heavily, then continued.  
“Our cousins, a nasty little man named Malekith and his brother Algrim, they came for the funeral. We never got along with them. I'm sure it would have made mother happy, to see us all being civil for the day. Then, after the funeral, things went very wrong. They spent years living off their trust funds, time spent travelling and avoiding speaking to any of us. It was of no surprise that they only returned to dispute the will.”  
“Oh Thor,” Nat said softly, leaning forward to kiss his head.  
She started plaiting his hair into intricate braids, carefully weaving them together.  
“I might have mentioned previously, my family is quite wealthy.”  
“You and your brother study in America, Loki went to school in England. We might have had an inkling,” Bucky said, eating the last of the popcorn.  
Steve took the bowl from him, going to pop another bag.  
“She left a lot of money, split between the family. Most went to my father, of course, and a lot to myself and Loki. But the rest was to be given to other members of the family. Malekith and Algrim were not mentioned, but they disputed it viciously. They attacked us all, starting fights with me and trying to manipulate Loki. Malekith even tried to scare off Jane, insulting and threatening her.”  
Thor’s face was thunderous and Tony squeezed his hand again.

“How did they dispute it?” Steve asked, handing Bucky a now full bowl of popcorn. “If they weren’t named, what could they do?”  
“Mother had been their godmother, so they claimed they had right. It took a long time just to fix the situation. Even then, it would have gone on for months if it had not been for Loki.”  
“Loki?” Clint asked, face still pressed up against Thor’s stomach and voice muffled.  
“Loki, for all of his faults, was of great help. He protected Jane from the worst of it and helped me fight. In the end, he sacrificed most of his trust. Gave them almost all that mother had left him, just to get them to leave.”  
“Holy shit,” Rhodey muttered, as Bucky said “what the fuck?”  
“Father changed his will the day before I left,” Thor told them. “Added a clause that no money was to be given to anyone in that part of the family, whether it be to them or their progeny.”  
“Well, that’s definitely for the best,” Steve said. “They don’t deserve a cent of your family’s money or a minute of their time.”  
“Family is difficult,” Thor said with a shrug. “Mine more so than others. I am glad we shall not be seeing them again.”

Everyone nodded their agreement, then they sat in silence for several long minutes.

“Alright,” Tony announced, letting go of Thor’s hand. “That’s it, I demand a cuddle pile.”  
He threw his arms around Thor’s shoulders, and Nat leant forward to rest her head on Thor’s.  
They all moved slowly, until they were in a huddle on the floor.  
“I’m being squished,” Clint said loudly.  
Tony pinched his side.

They all decided to sleep there, at Steve and Bucky's, for the night.  
It took a while to organise sleeping arrangements, but eventually they settled on Clint and Nat sharing a bed with Bruce in the other, while Rhodey and Tony shared a couch.  
Bucky and Steve were in the arm chairs and Thor set himself up a pillow pile on the floor to nest in, despite everyone’s complaints to the contrary.  
“I am sad, but I am not injured. Let me take the floor, please. If it gets too much, I will just go home. I only live across the hall,” he reminded them, hands on his hips and allowing no argument.

Tony was just about asleep when his phone lit up with a message.  
Rhodey hit his arm, and hissed at him to turn it off, but Tony checked it anyway.

Darcy Lewis messaged “Two and a Half Men (and Darcy)”

Darcy: HOLY SHIT GANG  
Steve: What’s happening?  
Darcy: You didn’t hear?  
Bucky: no  
Bucky: what  
Darcy: IT’S A RED FUCKING ALERT  
The Half: wat???  
Bucky: oh holy shit tony i forgot that was your nickname in the chat  
The Half: wat is?  
Bucky: you put the half in 2 1/2 men  
The Half: fuck u  
Bucky: u wish  
The Half: anyway  
The Half: wat darce  
Darcy: Jane and Thor.

-*-

Tony sighed heavily.  
“It was absolute shit. They’d been together almost a year at this point, and it was looking really serious. Then they broke up.”  
Stephen frowned, then looked inside, where Jane and Thor were standing together, his arm around her shoulders.  
“They got back together, eventually, but it was a mess. He was so upset and had no idea how to express it, and she couldn’t really help. It was kinda mutual. Thor brought up the conversation, I think hoping they could work it out, but she ended it. Said she couldn’t be what he needed, and he couldn’t be that for her either.”  
“That’s rough.”  
Tony shrugged.  
“It worked out eventually. They broke up the day they touched down back in New York, and then we all got to look after a heartbroken and miserable Thor. It wasn’t too bad though; he’s surprisingly easy to please.”  
“What’s the secret?” Stephen asked, trying desperately to pull the conversation from the darker topic and back into lighthearted territory.  
“He loves movies about weddings. And TV shows too actually. His favourite is 27 Dresses though, can’t fail if you put that on.”  
“That’s… unexpected.”  
“He’s a softie. So we kept him distracted with wedding movies, and the usual.”  
“Drinking?” Stephen asked.  
“Drinking,” Tony agreed.

-*-

“Alright you big lug,” Tony said, kicking Thor’s leg. “Get up.”  
Thor sat up on the couch, glaring at him.  
“What?”  
“Oooh, if looks could kill,” he said mockingly. “Last game of the year, come on.”  
“Last game?”  
“Football. Rhodey, Bucky, and Steve need us kiddo, gotta go cheer them on.”  
“They have real cheerleaders to do that,” Thor snapped, then sighed.  
“Come on, you need to get out of the house, and there is probably going to be a big afterparty. I’ll even supply you a steady stream of vodka, if you want.”  
“You promise?”  
“I promise.”

Thor agreed, showering and getting ready while Tony sat on his bed, playing around with some code on his tablet for his most recent AI project.  
He stored the tablet in his bag when Thor entered the room, hair still damp but looking decidedly less pathetic.  
Tony told him as much and Thor rolled his eyes, throwing his wet towel at him.  
“Eww, gross,” Tony shrieked, jumping off the bed.  
“Come on, Iron Man, we have a game to cheer on.”

The Howling Commandos won, a pure miracle given the standings up until that point, and the team hoisted Steve onto their shoulders.

“House party,” Falsworth announced, much to Bucky’s delight.  
“Fuck yeah,” he shouted, pumping his fist in the air. “Frat party time!”

_Iron Man messaged “The Avengers”_

Iron Man: team. afterparty. be there or be square.  
Captain America: Avengers…  
Captain America: ASSEMBLE!

-*-

“Avengers assemble?” Stephen asked incredulously.  
“It’s a bit dumb, but it’s become a thing now. Steve says it when we all catch up or go on missions.”  
“Missions?”  
“Gatecrashing parties mostly. But this is beside the point.”  
“There was a point?”  
“The point,” Tony enunciated, mock-glaring at Stephen. “The point is that they won. And it was party time.”

-*-

A winning post-game party was much like a standard post-game party, just bigger.  
More people, more drinks.

Tony was thoroughly enjoying it.

Even seeing Bruce talking to one of the cheerleaders didn’t throw him.  
The fluttering in his chest had long faded away, and the jealously that usually reared when Bruce talked to someone pretty was nowhere to be found.  
“Is this what getting over a crush feels like?” he asked Rhodey, who just looked at him weirdly.  
If it was, Tony decided, it was good.  
It felt… nice.

He shot Bruce a thumbs up when he caught his eye, and Bruce grinned before turning back to the girl.  
Then he went to get another drink.

Another hour into the party found him begging Pepper for help.  
“You’re so organised, Pep,” he whined. “Come on, just this one little thing.”  
“You want me to read through all of your assignments?”  
“Yep.”  
“What do I get in return?”  
“I will give you…”  
He trailed off, brow furrowed as he tried to think of something, before he gave up.  
“Okay, I will give you 12% of my company,” he told her, plucking a number at random out of the air.  
“It’s not your company though.”  
“Not yet, but by the time I take it over, I imagine it will be sitting on a nice value upwards of 20 billion. Which is… hmmm… approximately 2 billion dollars.”  
Pepper looked at him like he was an idiot, and in fairness, Tony thought he probably was.  
An idiot genius.  
Sounded about right.  
“I’m serious. In 10 years I’ll be running the joint, at which time you can come to me and say you want your money, and I will give it to you, in total. Or in monthly payments, if you’d prefer. That's better for tax. We could figure out a timeline and everything. Well, you’d figure it out, I’d just sign off on it. You are the organised one, after all.”  
“I… Oh, fine. Sure.”  
“We will go over the contract when I’m sober,” he promised her, then wandered off to find Rhodey.

His phone lit up with an alert.

_Three (3) new messages from Pepper Potts_

Pepper: You just promised me 12% of your company.  
Pepper: I’m sending you this message so you remember in the morning.  
Pepper: I don’t intend on cashing it in, but I just want you to see this message when you wake up and realise that you need someone whose sole job is to stop you doing stupid things when you drink, like promise chunks of your fortune away because someone said they’d help proofread your essays.

Tony grinned, shoved his phone back into his pocket, and got himself another drink.

-*-

“This now brings us to the end of first year.”  
Stephen snorted.  
“All that and we’ve only gone through a year?”  
“Still another year and a half to go,” Tony told him, grinning.  
“I will need another drink to even consider listening to any more of this.”  
“Calm down, princess. I’ll be back with more.”  
Tony stood and disappeared inside.  
Stephen sighed heavily, rubbing his hand down his face.  
“This is not how I expected today to go,” he said softly.  
He realised he was still holding Tony’s phone and flinched, putting it down softly where Tony had been sat.  
“I don’t know if I can handle another 18 months worth of stories.”  
He looked up to see Tony laughing with Bruce inside, frowning when his stomach flipped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta daaaahhhhhh, I'm capable of chapters that are longer than 2k!  
> I know, I can't believe it either
> 
> Hopefully it was readable!  
> I tried to split paragraphs as much as I could because it was just a massive wall of text when I started  
> Plus I hope the story/Stephen and Tony/story/Stephen and Tony/story set up comes across well, because I really love writing that way (I did the same in my Spider-Gram story, so it's obviously my favourite way to show someone retelling a story)
> 
> Have fun spotting all the references I've made, as a huge Marvel nerd with way too much knowledge of comic book lore  
> Especially Amadeus Cho, who does not exist in the MCU but is still a favourite of mine - it's self indulgent, but I wanted to include him anyway

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I'm dumb and take on a lot of different projects at once lmao  
> I also do NOT have an update schedule and schedule my life by phase of the moon and temperature of the ocean only
> 
> Anyway, here's the beginning to my incredibly silly and fun college AU - that was unbelievably intricate to plan and sort plot out for  
> God, I hope it's been worth it
> 
> Will feature: a lot of group chats, almost every character from the MCU because I'm a masochist, Thor as a frat boy Australian exchange student and Patron Saint of Lesbians, Pepper Potts as cheer captain, Bucky's accent, the Prankmaster 3000, and a lot more parties and drinks than is advisable


End file.
